by Ron Taffel
The reason I offered to write the forward for How’s Your Family Really Doing? is because we have reached a point in time when parents, child professionals and educators deserve to learn what is truly known about the characteristics and skill-sets that comprise a healthy family.
Looking at the family from a historical perspective it becomes clear why this confusion-ending resource is particularly timely and relevant. Since World War II, there have been at least five major trends in parenting, education and psychology. After the war, psychoanalytic models, which focused on individual pathology and family enmeshment, reigned in mental health clinics as well as in the literature. Kids and parents needed to be pried away from each other – separation was considered the antidote to ‘living under each other’s skin.’ This movement gave way to the ‘dysfunctional family,’ partially a product of post-sixties unraveling in tight-knit family, community and religious institutions. The emphasis now was on ‘tough love.‘ Limits and hierarchy were the answers for acting-out kids who had been catered to by the psychoanalytic perspective before. Soon parenting approaches again gave way, now to the ‘self-esteem revolution,’ a product of discovering how many kids had been crushed by serious, and until then, hidden family abuse. In the seventies, praise became the watchword; each child was celebrated for his or her uniqueness. The eighties birthed ‘family values,’ in part a response to the perceived coddling and child-centeredness of the self-esteem revolution just before. Family values called for a return to teaching children traditional virtues– truth, honesty and loyalty among others. Parents once again were implored to be firmly and authoritatively in charge.
Despite the invaluable contributions these perspectives made to the field, as well as to the culture at large, each was in part a reaction to the one preceding -- and more often than not, diametrically opposed. The pendulum swung back and forth, and the public, both parents and professionals alike were increasingly enlightened, yet confused at the same time.
Fast forward to where we are now. The new millennium has seen an explosion in what I call ‘the medicalization of childhood.’ Parents and professionals are on the lookout for a myriad of new labels, psychological problems increasingly understood as genetic, biological and individual. In today’s world, almost every child has some diagnosable disorder often leading to the use of newly discovered medications. Parents and child professionals are on a search and identify mission to figure out what’s wrong with children of all ages and then ‘fix them’ as quickly as possible.
None of this is problematic in and of itself. In fact, the advances made are staggering with each trend offering a great deal that furthers both parenting and treatment. The problem is that while we have amassed a tremendous amount of knowledge, with information literally available at our fingertips, there is more confusion than ever before. Everywhere I lecture around the country, whether my audience is made up of parents, child educators or mental health professionals I encounter the same phenomenon. There are always those who argue for the rightness of one point of view or perspective. The rest – and these represent the vast majority - are overwhelmed by the astonishing glut of information. Let’s face it, every morning when we open our computer home pages, we find the results of yet another, often contradictory study that instructs us on what foods we should eat or avoid, what discipline technique we should use or not, and what new medication has just been introduced or just taken off the market.
In spite of all this information, or perhaps because of it, few clinicians are ever taught the basics about what makes a family function well and how to help families reach the universally sought-after goal of being happy together.
This is not part of the curriculum in most graduate programs, nor is it taught in parenting classes or workshops for clinicians. We all wish to create healthy, loving families, but lack guidelines in both our professional training and in the popular culture to identify essential threads. Because of this when I first spoke with Debra and Don about How’s Your Family Really Doing?, I was immediately drawn to their organizing concept. The book clearly answers many of the questions I continue to get from thousands of adults in my clinical practice as psychologist and family therapist, in my workshops with parents, teachers, and mental health professionals, and in the psychotherapy agency I direct.
Debra and Don recognized this gaping hole from their own personal experience as parents and partners, as well as decades’ long practice working with families in their counseling center. Our world is filled with suggestions for change without any sense of a specific family’s needs or the bigger picture around the family or why we apply the latest techniques or why we still turn to certain techniques from decades ago. This is akin to doing surgery without conducting any diagnostic procedures beforehand. None of us would ever think of a knee replacement without an x-ray or consider removing a gallbladder without an MRI. But we are constantly bombarded with ideas to help us change our family relationships – those that matter so much to us - without first diagnosing what the problem is or where we need to focus.
In response, How’s Your Family Really Doing? offers a simple, yet comprehensive way to evaluate one’s own family and identify both its strengths and areas for improvement. To accomplish this, the reader finds a fifty-point questionnaire. In a few minutes, one learns which of the 10 Keys to a Happy Loving Family need more attention and exactly why. The chapters that follow outline ten foundational characteristics of healthy, happy families -- one key at a time.
These chapters make immediate sense because they are presented in accessible language with case examples, practical suggestions and personal anecdotes. Each summarizes “what we now know to be true,” a phrase I use often in workshops. Debra and Don have spent enormous time and effort to separate myth from fact. They then synthesize what we know about families from longitudinal surveys, controlled research studies, the writings of key contributors to the field of psychology, parenting and family systems, and, finally, their own work in the trenches with troubled families.
This important new reference provides an “all under one roof” opportunity to learn whatever you assess your own family needs to be. The average person would have to commit great resources in time and expense securing this specific kind of family relationship-assessment.
Now, if Don and Debra’s contribution would stop here that would be enough. However, knowing the limitations of any one book, they’ve provided (see Appendix) further references for each Key. This is done in order to take the reader deeper into areas that require attention and may change over time. For example, with young couples the Key #6, Balancing Closeness and Distance and Key #1, Talking and Listening, may be the most relevant; in the child-rearing years parents may well need more focus on Key #5, Who’s in Charge? or Key #9, Effective Problem Solving. Later in the life cycle, Chapter 7 on Accepting Differences and Chapter 3, Adapting to Change, may become crucial.
These different, yet always accessible components inspired me to encourage Don and Debra to get this book out there. For me, as a father bringing up two kids with my wife Stacey - as a therapist for over thirty years - as someone who speaks nationwide to both parents and professionals - I am grateful to find a resource that describes family happiness, not as a vague concept, but as a set of specific, reachable goals that often change over time.
How’s Your Family Really Doing? removes much of the confusion from our efforts to bring out the best in our families. It shows us how to construct a foundation of healthy habits, attitudes and behaviors for more loving and effective family relationships. Debra and Don invite us to enjoy the process of self-discovery while offering genuine respect to use what fits our own personal values.
How’s Your Family Really Doing? offers basic tools to create happiness in family life onto which we can build a unique home, one in which we can live and love each other over many years to come – really!
-Ron Taffel, Ph.D., New York
Author of Childhood Unbound and Breaking Through to Teens
