The Strong American Family

I love this picture, I always wanted my house too look like this, everyone seemed so happy and everything was so perfect and in order, plus that moms dress looks like a size 2 and with all those kids....what an achievment. But I think about it now, what is it that makes them happy and is it all that different from my own family

I decided to get some homework help from my family this weekend and hold some over the phone family interview. I couldnt contact all my sisters (becasue one was a sleeping teenager and the others was almost in labor) but I was a ble to ask some questions to my three younger sisters and I think they taught me more than I expeected to learn by asking a few little question.

I asked them three things...

1st: what makes our family strong?

2nd: what have we done to help us grow closers as a family?

3rd:What should we do to be a closer family?

Now, not all these questions where answered perfectly but that was the point of me doing this, i wanted THIER veiws on family and to see through thier little eyes how thier family is strong. Here is what they had to say

" I dont know, we working together, we just have eachothers back. Mom and dad, support me in everything I do and never tell us that we cant do something. I hang out with my sisters and try to treat them like their my friends."

- Kenna (and 14)

"When we go to Family reunions, I learned alot about what mom used to do with her sisters and how they helped eachother. And now my sisters do the same thing, kenna taught me guitar yesterday and I really love her then. I learned to be positive and people wanna be around you and your families is nice to you."

-Shayna (age 9)

"We get stronger sometimes when you and Chad come over and play fun game like, chalk board games or game with boards and you guys get along and sharewith me. And when we say prays we feel good because we're talking to Heavenly Father and when you say stuff like 'sorry for the bad things i do.' It feels good. and mom and dad, they do the same things as me sometimes as me, like cleaning with me and homework with me. And Kenna teaches me to talk to people and make thier day."

-Tessa (age 6)

How cute are THEY!! I love those girls! Each of them had such a specific and personal realationshop to family strength. Kenna, the teenager, saw her family as having her back, which to me, is so important becasue in high school everyone needs someone to get there backs and be there for them. And sweet Shayna, is at that age where she is trying to gain confidence in who she is and she looks to her family, her mom and her aunts who have always been such a big influence in her life. She recongnizes that happiness and having a postive attitude helps her make friends becasue her family taught her that. Tessa is amazing to me, shes so young but she knows so much! Her answer to the questions I asked often ended with her telling me about something that had nothing to do with the subject but while she stayed focused, the insight she gave me was priceless! She talked about playing together, working together, reading scriptures and praying as a family, teaching within the family and being examples for your siblings to look to, who new a 6 year old could teach me such divine truths.

IN chapter 22, it lists strengths with some ideas on how to better develope them. With each one we discussed I picked out points that helped me make a plan to better my family strengthening skills. Heres what I came up with!

1st: Caring and Appreciation:

• Make a conscious effort to develope emotional closeness and show love within the home.


• When you say I love you, say "I love you becauses...." Let them know the specifics!


• People cant read minds, tell family members what they do that makes you feel cared for and ask them what you can do to care for them better.

Ideas to improve: I loved this "Caring Days" Pick a few days out of the months that are designated caring days where you pick someone in the family to care for all day and focus on thier happiness.

2nd:Time Together

• Have a meaningful conversation everyday( i like this one because its so easy to grow too comforitable with your family members and sometimes you lose respect for thier needs and feelings but if you have a meaningful conversation with them, your reminded of thier trust in you and the impact that your actions have on thier happiness.)


• Meal time together, its not just sunday dinners, I think this has been a big strengthening tool for Chad and I, as a part of my new year resolution, I decided to be a better cook and make sure my husband is a happy healthy man! I know that he appreciates me more and I love him more as I find it important that he gets a good home made meals as often as possible. We sit down together more and are able to relax together.


• Continued courtship, this one is huge. we are broke college kids but we make sure to do something special with each other once a week, sometimes we go out sometimes we play the wii, or go to the temple, either way, its something that is planned and exclusively for the sake of spending the night with one another.

Ideas: One thing the book suggested for tghis strength to be developed was called the "5 Magic hours" THis is just mainly devoting AN ADDITIONAL 5 hours of time a week to one another.

3rd: Encouragement

• Discover eachothers talents and identify your own as well. this will show interest in eachother individual hobbies and strengths and help the other see how important she is in the relationship or family becasue of thier unique identity


• Encouraging words, use post-it notes to suprise eachother with messages of encouragment and love.


• Little phrases like "your looking good today" or good luck" " i know you'll do great" or "your always so good at this"...its important to vocalize the obvious sometimes!

Ideas: Something my family always didwas at birthdays we would go around the table and tell the persons whos birthday it was what we loved about them, the book suggest that we do that more often, like every sunday at dinner or on family night.

4th: Commitment

• Be a team


• Make sacrafices to preserve your famliys happiness and eternal salvations.


• Be personally dedicated to the health of your marriage. I have really be a huge advocate of this strength since May 21st 2010 when I got married to the love of my life! I have always had this overwhelming feeling of responsibility for my husbands hapiness and salvation becassue I know how much he loves me, and how much he feels that same responsibility, i know that by dedicating ourselves to our spouse and our relationship, our family will be happy and we can grow closer to our heavenly father together.


• Renew marriage vows, go to the temple and try to better understand your responsibilities and promises made.


• Discover and enhance family traditions. Not just traditions that you did as a child but new traditions for your famliy and your kids!

5th: Communication

• Listen with the head and the heart. I think that its so easy to tell when your REALLY listening and when your just going through the motions, even if your think your a good listener, we can all use practice


• Acknowledge the importance of your family members feelings


• Show understanding by paraphrasing so they know you understand them, everyone wants to be understood. everyone wants someone who "gets them"

I think I would add a few more to the list, just from talking to my sisters I know that being involved in eachothers daily activities wether its chores, or homework or just playing, its important to be involved. I also think what my little sister said about prayer and scripture study is poserful. I asked her why prayer and family scriptures helped us to be stronger and she said " well, becasue it makes all of us feel good and we di it together, so we all feel good together" Shes so little but she will always associate scriptures and prayer with warm feelings of love and family togetherness. Sometimes i think my family isnt perfect and we have so many flaws but we are a good functioning, happy, confident family, we know who to turn to when we need help and are never alone, if thats not perfect, its pretty darn close :)