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This is one of over 150 articles focused on building
high-nurturance
family relationships and
preventing divorce. This
introduction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use
its resources. Eacharticle is part of a
mosaic of ideas, so the
more you read, the more sense they'll all make.
These articles augment, vs. replace, other
qualified
professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
need?
This article proposes 17 basic premises about "healthy" (functional, or
high-nurturance) families and other groups. Read this (a) to clarify what
you believe, and (b) for useful perspective on using this
assessment-worksheet proposing 31 specific
behavioral traits of high-nurturance groups.
Premise - families exist in every age and
culture because no other human group can fill the mem-bers' primal
needs (nurture) as well as they do. A corollary is that by judging a
number of traits, any family can be ranked to fall somewhere on a continuum
between very low nurturance to very high nurturance.
From one (very low) to 10 (very high),
how would you rate the "nurturance
level" of the family you grew up in? If you're a parent, how high
would each of your kids rank the nurturance level of her or his childhood
family when s/he is, say, 35? By the end of this article, you'll have a
better idea of how to answer these questions.
A third premise is that average
children raised in significantly low-nurturance family environments develop
two to six psychological
wounds in order to
survive. A corollary is that such kids fail to master key developmental stages like
these.
Unless these wounds are admitted and intentionally reduced, they have
predictable toxic
effects on survivors' personalities, relationships, careers, wholistic health, and
longevity.
A common symptom (vs. proof) of significant wounds is one or
more divorces. Another is never committing to a primary relationship. See
this research summary for perspective on
these premises. There are many other common behavioral wound-symptoms.
Project 1 in this site is devoted to assessing for and reducing toxic "false self"
wounds.
This
article
offers...
a group of
basic premises about families (like yours)
which underlie the
12 co-parent Projects in
this educational Web site, and...
a
summary of 30 common traits of
high-nurturance families.
This is one of a dozen
Project-1
worksheetsthat can
help you assess for significant "false self" wounds.
Basic Premises about
Families
With your childhood and present families in mind, see if you
Agree, Disagree, or are (?) ambivalent
or unsure about these ideas:
Premise 1) Families
have existed in every age and culture because they fill some
core
needs better than other human groups.The core purposes of
biological, step, foster, adoptive, absent-parent,
childless, and other kinds of
families are to:
provide an
accessible refugewhere each member can
feel consistently accepted + valued + appreciated + safe
+ useful + supported + encouraged - i.e.loved.
Many families also...
conceive and/or
nurture children - i.e. provide for their
wholistic health and growth, and work patiently to prepare minor kids to
become healthy, self-sufficient, productive adults, and
responsible parents and citizens.
(A D
?)
Can you think of any other reasons families exist?
2)The wholistic health of a person or a
family is their current blend of emotional +
spiritual
+ mental + physical healths. Typically,family members make self-biased
judgments about their personal and family
wholistic health, whichmore objective
observers may dispute.
(A
D ?)
3)Average
children raised in a low-nurturance home and environment
automatically adapt by developing a protective
false self
(personality). Without informed help and a
higher-nurturance environment, such kids grow up to continue
the
cycle
- they (a)
unconsciously choose wounded partners, (b)
neglect
their own health and longevity, and (c) evolve a
low-nurturance home for any kids they conceive despite
vows not to.
(A D
?)
4) The
adult leader/s of any family is/are responsible for
how nurturing their home and family is over time. The
nurturance level of their physical family directly mirrors
(a) the nurturance level and harmony of the adult's
inner family
of personality subselves, and (b) how well they know some
core life skills and facts.
(A
D ?) For
perspective on your dynamic inner family, see
this.
Premise 5)A
common false-self wound is reality distortion, soco-parents whose true Self is
disabled
don't see themselves as significantly wounded or
their family as being "low nurturance." Other wounded people
may say "Sure, I have some wounds - everyone does," but they
minimize or ignore what that
means.
(A
D ?)
6) Family leaders can learn how to
assess
and
reduce
their false-self wounds and raise their inner
and outer families' nurturance levels at anytime.
(A
D ?)
7)
High-nurturance families have specific traits (below)
that lower-nurturance families don't.
(A D
?)
help
courting co-parents make three informed
choices
about if and when to form a complex, risky stepfamily in
order to...
protect
themselves and their descendents and society from the
ancestral
cycle
of low childhood nurturance
(neglect) psychological
wounding
low
nurturance
(re)divorce.
(A D ?)
10)The
nurturance-levels of your past and present families
powerfully affect your
wholistic health,
achievements, priorities, and relationships. You have
many choices about assessing and improving your current
levels. A useful way to begin is to study
Project 1
and use these
12
assessment
tools. Then decide if you want to act. People ruled by false
selves often aren't motivated to do this unless they
"hit bottom."
(A D ?)
11) Family leaders who provide many of these
traits in their homes usually gotthem consistently
from their early caregivers at home, school, and
church. Wholistic health and family nurturance seems to
reproduce naturally, and vice versa:
low childhood
nurturanceand related psychological wounds
pass down
the generations, until identified and intentionally
healed. (A D ?)
Do you have dependent
children and/or grandchildren?
12) Versions of these traits appear in any
high-nurturancehuman
organization, like schools, teams, committees,
churches, communities, governments, and businesses. Members
of such groups display characteristic behaviors like
these. People whose
inner families
(personalities)
have high-nurturance levels tend to join or found
high-nurturance social environments, and vice versa. (A
D ?)
13)
Families and other groups with "too few" of the factors
above are called
dysfunctional because they don’t fill members' current primary
needs very well.
Most U.S. families and schools appear to be moderately to
very dysfunctional. It's our current cultural norm,
so few people are concerned enough to work toward raising
public awareness and
revising state and federal laws to improve this. (A D
?)
Premise 14)Key questions about
any family (like yours) are:
How wholistically-nurturing
was or is it (very low to very high) for all members -
i.e. how many of these 33
nurturing traits
have been consistently present?, and...
What
emotional and spiritual
effects
has this had on each family member? (A D
?)
15) Kids who consistently get enoughof the
30 nurturancesat home, school, and church (a
subjective judgment) usually mature into what may be called
Grown Nurtured
Children, or GNCs.Adults who were
unintentionallydeprived in early childhood of too
many of these traits, too often, may be called Grown Wounded Children
or GWCs.
You, your past and present
partners, and every child and adult falls (subjectively)
somewhere on a line between "major GNC" and "major GWC."
This has implications for
divorce-adjustment
and re/marital and stepfamily success. (A D
?)
16) After professionally researching
divorcing-family and stepfamily dynamics and "human nature"
since 1979, I
believe that most divorcing adults are significantly-wounded
GWCs. They're usually in self-protective (false self)
denial
of their wounds and the immediate and tragic long-term
impactsof their wounds. Few co-parents,
human-service
professionals,
or legislators seem to (want to) know this. Many are wounded
themselves and in protective denial. (A D
?)
Premise 17) Typical
unrecovering
GWCs and their kids exhibit clear personal traits and group
behaviors. These traits, and
characteristics of their childhood
family and their ancestral
family trees, provide four ways to
assess for significant false-self dominance.Honest assessmentpromotes
accepting and reducing (vs. curing)
false-self wounding,
This can (a) combat the first of five re/marital
hazards,
and (b) break the unseen generational
bequest
of significant wounds and unawareness. (A
D ?)
+ + +
These 17 premises
underlie all
12 co-parent Projects
(safeguards) in this
nonprofit divorce-prevention Website and related
guidebooks. Project 1
(wound assessment and reduction) applies persons in any kind of
family.
Note that the
Project-1 guidebook
Who's Really Running Your Life? (Xlibris, 2002, 2nd
edition) integrates key Project-1 Web articles, and focuses on
understanding and identifying false-self wounds and practical
options for reducing them over time.
With all this in mind, meditate on these
thoughts from and about your
child/ren.
Then pause and
reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you
needed? If not, what do you need now?
Next...
Study,
discuss, and apply these
slide presentations
on personality subselves,
the silent [wounds + ignorance]
cycle that may lower your family's nurturance level and
wound
your descendents, and inner-wound-recovery.
If you have trouble viewing the slides, see
this.
And...
Get
undistracted, adopt the open mind of a student, and use
these premises to rate
the past or present nurturance level of someone's family
Learn how to
diagram who comprises your
family, and/or to draw a "structural
map" of your family to disclose some important traits;
or...
Review these
options for helping
others learn about and break the [wounds + unawareness]
cycle, and see if you're inspired to do that -
starting with your own family.
The Web address of this
2-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/basics/health.htm
Basic Premises about
Families
psychological
wounding