The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships

by John Gottman

  • What does it take to provide a healthy, nurturing environment for a child?

  • What qualities must a child have in a home in order to have a happy life? Did the home you grew up in have those qualities? How do you want your child’s environment to be similar to, or different from, the home you grew up in?

  • Who should be the most important influences in your child’s life? How can you ensure that your child spends enough time with these people to make it so?

  • What role should education play in your child’s life? How will your child get the kind of education you want for him or her?

  • What role should television, the Internet, popular music, advertising, and other forms of media play in your child’s life? How will you help your child to interpret and understand things he or she learns through the media?

  • What do you want your child to learn about ethics, morality, spirituality, or religion? What meaning or purpose should these issues have in your child’s life? How will your child learn about these things?

  • What are the most important things you want your child to know about friendship? About marriage? About family? About sexuality? About money? About making a living? How will your child learn these things?

  • What is the meaning and purpose of discipline in your child’s life? What’s the best way to discipline your child? Does your current habit of discipline differ from this? If so, how can you change it? How can you ensure that your child receives consistent discipline?

  • Imagine your child as an adult looking back on his or her childhood, long after you have died. What would you want your child to say about the kind of parent you were? What changes would you have to make in your life today to be that kind of parent?

  Rituals of Connection with Your Child

  Rituals can enhance emotional connection in any relationship, but they’re especially helpful for children, who often thrive on the comfort and security of knowing what’s going to happen next. For small children—who often have trouble making the transition from one part of the day to the next—rituals can smooth the way. (“Go to the window and we’ll do our special wave before I leave for work. Then I’ll look in the window to find you when I come back.”) For adolescents, rituals can be an anchor during changing times. (“Yes, you can take the bus to the mall with Frannie, but I expect you home for supper by six.”) And for youngsters of all ages, rituals can be used to transmit a family’s values and sense of belonging. (“We always have the Passover Seder with your grandmother. It means so much to her that we come together this way each year.”)

  On the next few pages you’ll read suggestions for rituals that may enhance connections between parent and child. Some, like bath time, are geared toward very young children, while others appeal to kids of all ages. Whatever rituals you choose to do with your kid, try to make the activity appropriate for your child’s age and stage of development. Keep in mind that kids may enjoy taking more responsibility for creating the ritual as they grow older. A three-year-old, for example, might enjoy folding festive napkins for the Thanksgiving Day feast, while a thirteen-year-old can help you bake the turkey, stuffing and all.

  Morning rituals. If the kids have got to scoot to school or day care, wake them early enough so that they can calmly dress and eat breakfast. Sit down at the table together. Talk about the day ahead for each of you in encouraging ways. If you’re spiritually inclined, say a short prayer together, or read an inspirational verse.

  Leave-taking. Acknowledge older kids as you go your separate ways with a quick kiss, a hug, or affectionate words. Little ones may benefit from reassurances of how soon you’ll be reunited. Special handshakes, silly waves, or funny sayings (“See you later, alligator!”) repeated each day can help to seal the deal emotionally.

  Reuniting. Let your kids know how happy you are to see them with a warm, affectionate hello. Ask specific questions about things that may have happened since you last saw them. “Tell me about the field trip.” “What did you do at recess?” “Who brought snacks?” Vague questions like “How was school today?” are guaranteed to elicit vague responses—especially from teens. But if you ask more probing questions, like “What was the dumbest thing that happened in school today?” you’re bound to make a connection.

  Remember that kids preschool age and younger may need some transition time when they see you after hours of separation. So don’t be surprised if your child is not ready to go the minute you arrive at the baby-sitter’s house or day-care center. Spending a few extra minutes in their own world at the end of the day may help to make them feel more secure.

  Mealtimes. Everybody’s got to eat, so why not make dinnertime a shared pleasure—the focal point of your time together each day. Kids may benefit from involvement in the whole process—from planning to cooking to cleaning up afterward. But at the very least, make an effort to come together around the dining table at least once a day. If conflicting work schedules make a shared dinner impossible, find a substitute. Designate another gathering time—right after school or just before bed, for example—and stick to it. Then come together over a snack, a cup of tea, or cookies and milk. If even that’s impossible, try to find at least a few times a week when you can all be together.

  Talk about the events of the day and make sure each person—from youngest to oldest—gets a chance to talk. Because your intention is to connect, turn off the TV and try to eliminate other distractions; let the answering machine pick up the phone. The idea is to treat family meals as the great opportunity they are—your best daily shot at influencing your kids, showing them you respect and care about them.

  Try to make the table a peaceful environment. If there’s a problem brewing, set aside another time and another place to talk about it soon.

  Power struggles over kids’ eating habits are a common cause of mealtime tension in many families. You can avoid such problems by following this simple rule, recommended by many nutritionists: The parents are in charge of what’s served; the child gets to decide how much of it he or she will eat. Some families also avoid food fights by offering picky eaters a healthy “default.” (“If you don’t like what we’ve prepared, you can have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a piece of fruit. But you fix it yourself and you don’t complain.”)

  Bath time. With its warm water, sweet smells, bubbles, and rubber ducks, bath time can be one of the most pleasurable rituals small children share with their parents. You can make it all the more fun by incorporating songs and imaginative games into the routine of washing up. Approaching hygiene the same way each night can take the fear out of chores like shampooing. Also, avoid tears and power struggles by allowing plenty of time for play as well as for transitions in and out of the tub.

  Homework time. You can let your child know how much education means to you by helping him or her to establish a structured ritual around studying. Designate a special time each day for homework, for example. And make your family’s priorities clear. Some families, for example, make the phone and TV off limits until homework is done. Also, select a comfortable, quiet, well-lit place in your house where your child can sit each day to study. You can offer to assist in projects when that’s appropriate, but don’t hover. Kids need to learn to take responsibility for their own work.

  Bedtime. Nighttime rituals provide some of the best opportunities to feel emotionally connected to children. They’re groundwork for the separation that parent and child inevitably experience during sleep, and they can be a way to acknowledge and process the feelings that inevitably go along with being apart. It’s almost as if family members are going away on a brief journey to wherever our dreams are about to take us, and bedtime rituals allow kids to feel better prepared for the journey. So take your time, and don’t be surprised if your child likes to get ready for bed the same way every night. Rituals may include telling a story to your child or listening as your child tells you a story. Some kids like a small snack, such as crackers and milk. Others may involve their toys and s
tuffed animals in a litany of good-nights. A back rub, a prayer, or a song can be a soothing way to end the day. Affectionate hugs, kisses, and special handshakes are sometimes called for. And never underestimate the power of reading aloud to your child as a way to bond, to instill a love for good books, to share an adventure, and to drift peacefully into sleep.

  And just because your child is growing doesn’t mean that you have to let go of all your bedtime rituals. I know families who still enjoy reading aloud together just before bed well into their child’s teen years.

  When your child is sick. Like bedtime, childhood illnesses are golden opportunities to use ritual as a way to say you care. Here’s a common, simple, and effective ritual: The parent drags pillows and a blanket out to the living room couch and urges the sick child to rest and read or watch TV. The child is then centrally located where all in the family can express their affection and concern. Common props may include the thermometer, the heating pad, orange juice, chicken soup, and piles of the child’s favorite reading. Try not to worry about “goldbricking.” A child who knows he’ll be well cared for in illness won’t need to test that theory. Concentrate instead on listening to your child’s bid for connection, and turn your attention to helping him or her to get well.

  Support for sports, arts, and academic achievements. At the end of every soccer game, parents join hands and form an arch for junior athletes to run through. Each spring, “Band Booster” parents hold an old-fashioned school carnival—complete with a cakewalk and a duck pond game—to raise funds for new musical instruments. Each fall, parents flock to their kids’ classrooms and sit in undersized chairs to pore over test scores during parent-teacher conferences. Events like these all demonstrate to our kids that their achievements matter. When they see us joining other adults in ritualized support of their growth and development, our kids know their parents aren’t the only ones behind them—the whole community cares.

  Holiday celebrations. Holidays provide special opportunities for emotional connection in all relationships, and they can be especially meaningful for parents as a way to pass along family traditions and teach values to their children. We need to be vigilant, however, to keep commercial pressures from overwhelming our chances. With retailers feeling increasing pressure to make huge profits from holiday sales, our children may get the message that religious holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah are more about acquisition than connection. What’s the solution? Take a look at your family’s holiday traditions and weed out those that make you feel harried, worried, or put-upon. Cling instead to those rituals that leave family members feeling peaceful, emotionally satisfied, and closer to loved ones. Books like The Intentional Family, by William J. Doherty, Ph.D. (Avon, 1997), and Unplug the Christmas Machine, by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli (Quill, 1991), can be enormously helpful in finding ways to improve your emotional experience of the holidays.

  One important point that the authors of both books stress: Don’t leave all holiday preparations up to one family member (i.e., Mom). Involving the whole family in planning, decorating, cooking, and so on may take more time and patience than doing it yourself. But if your intention in celebrating the holidays is to draw closer to loved ones, then, of course, it’s worth it to make these activities teamwork. Encourage children to express their ideas and add their own creative touches. Then, as kids grow up, they naturally may start taking on more responsibilities for holidaymaking, allowing the matriarchs of the family to relax through more of the celebration.

  One more piece of advice: Create holiday rituals that express your family’s own unique likes and dislikes. This adds to children’s sense that their participation in the celebration strengthens their ties to the clan. (“Our family thinks having a dead tree in our house at Christmas is a dumb idea. We buy a live one in a pot, decorate it, and then plant it later on.” “Our family loves animals. We always go to the zoo at Passover time and see the new babies.”) Some families create rituals around their own idiosyncratic “holidays”—an annual drive to the country in the fall to view the autumn color, for example, or a trip to the ocean at summer solstice.

  Rites of passage. Some religious traditions provide rites of passage for children as they move into their teen years. Rites such as the Jewish bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah give communities an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate this passage in a formal and public way. It’s a chance to say, “Our sons are growing into men and our daughters are growing into women. We as parents have powerful hopes, dreams, and expectations for them as they make this transition. We want them to become responsible, happy, successful adults. We intend to give them all the love, guidance, and support they’ll need to make this transition successfully. But we also know that they’ll need the guidance and support of others from our community, so we ask for your help and your prayers during this transition as well.”

  Unfortunately for too many teens, such truths are never spoken, never acted upon. Consequently they drift through their teen years without the emotional reassurances of support that such rituals can provide. Teens may wish, suspect, and believe that their parents are beginning to see them as responsible adults, but there’s no moment for them to connect emotionally around this truth.

  Whether you’re religious or not, you may want to create some kind of personalized family ritual aimed at forming a stronger emotional bond with your child during this challenging life transition. Writer Celeste Fremon, for instance, described a “Not Mitzvah” she held for her non-Jewish son. She invited her son’s closest friends and relatives and asked each of them to present a gift that would symbolize what he or she wished for his future. Gifts ranged from a worn Swiss Army knife to a new power drill. Each also brought along a wish or piece of advice that would help the boy along his way. Writing in the Utne Reader, Fremon said that on the surface, the ceremony didn’t seem that significant. “And yet it was a very big deal that so many men in Will’s life showed up to tell him that he mattered, that they took him seriously, that they were there for him if he needed them.”

  Other parents have described less formal celebrations. One dad taught his son to shave, then took him out for ice cream to celebrate. Another family held a bonfire on the beach at the end of elementary school, and burned a huge pile of papers their son had accumulated—minus the most treasured stories and artwork, of course. One mom celebrated her daughter’s first menstrual period with a special dinner out for just the two of them. Another mom took her girl to a fancy hotel, where the two had facials in the spa and spent the night. Each parent valued the experience as a chance for one-on-one time, a time to acknowledge his or her child changing and to say, “I’m here for you.”

  Family chores. Washing dishes, raking leaves, folding laundry—such tasks can become rituals of connection if we do them side by side. The key is to make the activity a positive experience. While you work, chat with your child about topics he or she finds interesting and upbeat. Offer your child lots of praise for his or her efforts, as well. (“I like the way you stacked those towels.” “When we weed the flower bed together, we get done in half the time.”) It may take some cajoling to get children in the habit of doing chores together, but once they begin to experience them as positive activities in which they get emotional support, their resistance wanes.

  Discipline. Your routine ways of responding to your children’s misbehavior can be powerful rituals for teaching them what you truly value. That’s why it’s so important to develop thoughtful, consistent habits for disciplining your child.

  For small children, such rituals might include a short “time out” followed by a heart-to-heart talk about how to handle the problem differently in the future. This response teaches that it’s important to understand one another and learn from our mistakes. For older children, the ritual ought to include consequences related to the misbehavior. Also, make sure that the consequences draw kids into family activities rather than excluding or isolating them. (“I asked you to be home for supper by six, and you
were an hour late. So tomorrow night you need to be home by five. That way, you can help me cook and set the table.”)

  It may help to remember that the words discipline and disciple have the same Latin origin, discere, meaning “to learn.” Your children are like your disciples, constantly looking to you for clues about how to live.

  Apologies and forgiveness. As with marriage, parent-child bonds can benefit from rituals of emotional healing. What signals does your family typically use when one or more of you is ready to negotiate a cease-fire and start repairing hurt feelings? Are there words or gestures that everybody understands to mean “I’m sorry,” “Let’s talk,” or “I forgive you”? Rituals of apology and forgiveness may include those very words, or they may be more subtle—a wisecrack or an offering of something to eat, for example. Gestures of apology might be a peck on the cheek, a hug, or a back rub. When your daughter has a temper tantrum, runs to her room, and slams the door, does it mean something to hear the door quietly open five minutes later? Is it an unspoken invitation for you to enter and begin peace talks? Pay attention to such rituals as they develop in your family, and honor them. They can be extremely helpful for children, especially very young ones who lack the verbal skills to express all the pain they may experience when family members fight. But children can easily understand the soothing effects of a hug or a few minutes together in the rocking chair.

  Building Better Emotional Connections in Friendship

  Step 1. Look at Your Bids for Connection with Friends

  One of the most delightful—and volatile—aspects of friendship is the voluntary nature of it all. Whether it’s a cup of coffee, a lavish gift, or an offer to stay by your sickbed, favors from friends are intentional acts of generosity. Friends are not obligated to us by law, economics, or family bonds. Our friends turn toward our bids for connection simply because they want to, and that’s what makes those relationships so rewarding.