A Crisis is an Opportunity

My weeks here at school go by so quickly. I am overwhelmed with many different thoughts. I am finding so much fascination in the family system. It is interesting if you look at what happens to a family system when a crisis hits. A crisis can be anything in a family that causes distress such as a death, financial difficulties, abuse, moving to another state, and anything else that you can think of. This week, I have seen and been taught about the miraculous healing that can take place in a family. There are many habits that you can set into place that help families transition and go through a family crisis. When we are having family dinner together, accepting of each person in the family and find value in him or her, involving each other in activities and in our lives, and when we are open to family counsel and talking about issues that come up in the family. Have you ever thought about how your family copes with a crisis? Isn't it interesting how each family members handles stress and hardships in the family in a different way? To cope well takes setting boundaries, planning, and learning how to make small adjustments in our lives that helps us to handle a situation in a better way. So, how can we teach our children to understand proper ways to cope and handle hard things that happen in their lives or in the family? One of the post powerful concepts I learned this week is this, when something traumatic in the family happens, one of the best healing elements for those in the family is to gather together for a family talk or counsel and each individual has the opportunity to share their feelings and concerns. This is uniting as a family. Have you ever noticed how when hardships hit a family it seems to be that everyone handles and copes with the hardship on their own? Why is it that families do not come together and unite with one another?

As I have you thinking, I have a few thoughts I felt were the most profound this week in my Family Relations learning. 

A lady by the name of Chloe Madanes has written a book about how to heal from sexual abuse that happens in the family. We discussed in class two different techniques and strategies that she suggests that helps a healing process. First, she suggests that when an incident happens within the immediate family, the family gathers together and the perpetrator gets on his knees and kneels down in front on the victim and sincerely apologizes while looking into the victims eyes. Each member in the family talks about how they were hurt because of this abuse that happened. A therapy technique is to show the victim the amount of minutes they were abused to the amount of minutes they have been living. This puts into perspective the little bit of percentage that they have been abused in their life. 

I know that when family crisis hits, it is hard for us to see that it really is an opportunity to learn and grow. A family crisis can either bring us together as a family or draw us far apart as a family. We can help our families practice proper coping skills. There is hope, healing, and happiness for those families who learn how to grow closer together through hardships. Healing can happen no matter what the circumstance may be.