Warm Is The New Cool

What's the "temperature" in your family right now? On a scale of "roaring fire in the hearth" to "ginormous ice sickles", how close do you feel you are in the relationships you have with those you call family? 

This recent post from the Fuller Youth Institute would say that the "temperature" of your family is pretty important...

In a comprehensive study of relational dynamics in more than 300 families spanning 35 years, family warmth was more correlated with faith transmission than any other relational factor (including amount of contact between the generations, the type of contact, and the number of children in the family). 

But as a parent, you aren’t the best judge of your family’s warmth. As is true with so many aspects of family life, this study found it is our child’s perception of closeness that matters more than our own perception of closeness.

Fuller goes on to say that there are generally five ways to kill family warmth in your family, those five having to do with:

• Words - We tend to be less filtered, and therefore more hurtful, with our words when it concerns family members versus other relationships
• Tone of Voice - Sometimes it's not what you say, it's how you say it.
• Body Language - (see above)
• Technology - Nothing kills conversation like screen time.
• Fatigue - Except maybe being overly busy and too tired to relate.

There's a lot here for all of us to work on--maybe we could just pick one area, and make a concentrated effort to display better behavior, and get that family-thermostat up a little higher this week.

Fuller has some other great tips in their post, so check it out as well.