It is family day next Monday here in Ontario. Family Day is a holiday we celebrate to spend time with our loved ones, which could range from simply having dinner or spending the whole day together. Growing up in a family of five, I find it to be very important to have family values to maintain a strong foundation for families.
Here are my top 5 family values:
- Belonging: Everyone has a different meaning of what home is. I believe home is a place you can always return to not only when things don’t work out in your new home with your partner or roommate, but a safe place where you know you will be surrounded with love. It is a place where someone you care about is thinking of you too and that is where home will be. Being close with your family does not mean having to spend all your free time with them, but finding the perfect balance of work and/or school, personal life and time to do activities with your family.
- Communication: It is always good to be open to talk to your family about concerns or problems you have with a family member in a respectful way. Nothing gets solved if you and/or one of the members of your family can’t express themselves. The problem could get worse and that will only lead to being unhappy. You can express yourself not only by talking, but how you communicate with your eyes, body and how well you listen to their side as well.
- Responsibility: A lot of us learned to be responsible since we were young by being given chores and tasks to do around the house. Even at school, we had the responsibility to finish assignments and into adulthood, our amount of responsibilities increased. The responsibilities I believe are important in my family include the following:
- Calling your family member(s) and seeing how they are doing.
- Invite them for dinner from time to time.
- Try to make time to visit them.
- Learning to forgive: Our family like many families have flaws. Our personalities do not always mix well together. The result of that are misunderstandings, which leads to arguments. Some may last for an hour to not talking for months. Getting past this obstacle in your relationship with one of your siblings or parents isn’t always the easiest thing to do. The first step to help fix the problem is learning to forgive or looking past the problem. Seeing if it is even worth ruining the relationship you have with them.
- Be Reasonable: Being generous may come easy for some people and harder for others. It is about sincerely doing something for another person from the bottom of your heart. This relates to being reasonable such as learning to compromise what you want to do vs what they want to do. For example, my boyfriend and I can’t always agree on what movie to watch when we go to the theaters. So my boyfriend would go watch a chick flick I really want to watch and the next time we go to the movies, I would watch something he really wants to watch that I might not be interested in as much as him.
Passion NYC 