Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘community’

In 1991, Allan Luks (former executive director of The Institute for the Advancement of Health and executive director of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program in New York City) documented a study about kindness in a book called “The healing power of doing good: The health and spiritual benefits of helping others”.

In a survey he conducted among 3,000 people of all ages from 20 organizations around the USA, he found clearly that “Helping contributes to the maintenance of good health and it can diminish the effect of diseases and disorders both serious and minor, psychological and physical”. So there you have it – if you want to be happy and healthy, help others!

In his research, Luks found that helping others and being kind resulted in a sharp reduction of stress and increased the release of endorphins (the body’s natural feel-good drugs). Over 90% of participants in his research reported that regular volunteering lowered their stress level and contributed to their health and wellbeing.

After two years of blogging on parenting and many years of working with parents, after 6 years of coaching and many years of turning kids into super powers, Ronit Baras is going on stage!

Two years ago, we launched the “Family Matters” website. Wow, when I look back, I realize so many things have happened since. Now, we have 438 posts (all original material from our own experience with our own kids), and lots and lots of comments. We are very proud and happy to be making a difference in so many families’ lives.

After hearing many people talk about the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, we decided to rent it from the video library. We watched it with the kids and they were very surprised to see the world drying up right in front of their eyes. I was not sure that it would have such a great impact on them, because, as kids, I thought they would be too preoccupied with school, friends and fun. Well, watching it was not fun at all, but I was very surprised when “Earth Hour” was announced and the kids wanted to take part in it. They did not complain, they did not talk about computers or watching a movie, they did not even say anything when we suggested taking a shower in the dark.

Individuals make couples, couples make families and families make communities. It is people’s natural instinct to get together. According to Dr. Mary Pipher, a therapist and anthropologist, the family is still an essential unit of the community. When people get married, their hopes are linked to building a home and a family.

I remember the day my daughter was born. Gal and I moved from being a couple taking care of ourselves, concentrating on our needs and aspirations, into being a family. It was a big feeling of responsibility mixed with joy. It was the beginning of a different journey.

While marriage is a later invention in human development, family is an ancient institution. Now, many people have kids but having kids and having a family are totally different things. Bringing kids into the world is a much simpler task than creating a family. To have a baby, all we need is a sperm and an egg, but to have a family we need parents who stick together. The reason families were part of the ancient world was because keeping together was an important survival skill.

For a family to function, it needs a strong support structure and having to support a family as a single parent is a hard task. A solid family is like riding a cycle. A unicycle requires lots of balance, while a bicycle is much easier. If you are one of the millions of parents who are working very hard to keep their family together, bravo to you for making an effort to support the most ancient important institute of humanity.

Happily married people understand this very basic concept. Working together makes life easier for everyone. This road was not meant to be traveled alone.