How Happy is Your Family?

Take a Family "Climate Survey" to Pinpoint Areas for Improvement

Mar 18, 2009

Couples can improve their family's overall level of happiness and joy when they habitually assess each family member's satisfaction level and then make realistic changes.

Each New Year’s Eve, millions of people make long and often intimidating lists of "have to" resolutions. However, the most practical way to improve your life and your family's is to regularly conduct informal home “climate surveys” and then to make small incremental changes.

Climate Surveys

Climate in the context of measuring an overall “people environment” is defined by Isaksen and Ekvall (2007) as “the recurring patterns of behavior, attitudes and feelings that characterize life in the organization” (Isaksen & Ekvall, 2007).

In other words, what is someone’s overall feeling about their work or home environment. How does their attitude affect how they act?

Large companies conduct annual climate surveys to identify the main problems within an organization and areas that work well. These surveys provide management with a measurement tool to assess personnel satisfaction and loyalty, staff efficiencies, and to uncover red flags.

Corporate climate surveys often reveal how staff feels about their relationships with their co-workers and management. The quality of relationships is often a key factor in how well staff performs their job.

Couples can loosely translate this concept into their own home. Parents or partners should first ask themselves the following, "if someone off the street spent a month in my home as a fly on the wall, what general feeling would they get?"

Determine Overall Climate and Satisfaction in Family

The approach with your partner or children should be informal and friendly. Here are a few suggestions:

Observe quietly. Without telling anyone watch from the sidelines. Does your family mostly bicker, sulk, slam, clench, avoid, laugh, cry, joke, avoid, relax, communicate, listen, apologize and move on? Are they hot (anxious, in motion, stressed, anxious, irritable), cold (emotionally distant, removed, avoidant, quietly stewing, sad, non-emotive), or tepid (just right, in the middle either too hot or too cold). How do they respond to each other?
Discuss. Call a “casual family meeting” with your spouse and children (age seven and up). Sit in a comfortable setting and avoid distractions. Explain that you love everyone and would like to do an annual “review” (explain to children) to gauge how they feel about their family life. It's very important to disclaim up front that there are no right or wrong answers and that no one will get in trouble for being honest.

Suggestions to stimulate discussion:

What makes you the most happy? (no prompting, keep it open-ended) What makes you the most worried, angry, sad, scared? (no prompting)

What would you like to change about mom, dad, siblings, school, home, friends? anything? (provide gentle and reassuring prompts in each category)

Consider asking children under age seven the same questions, but ask them to draw a picture to illustrate their answers. Ask them to describe their drawing. Keep all adult-only conflicts away from the children.

Initially, the meeting should be diagnostic (determine issues) but it can also be prescriptive (invite and provide solutions).

Make Adjustments in Family Environment

Based on the results of your informal climate “survey,” talk to your spouse, and where appropriate to your children, about potential changes. Suggestions might include to:

Schedule family, couple or individual counseling;
Schedule financial/credit counseling;
Set more clear boundaries with children. Set clear rewards and consequences;
Create family rituals to build memories for a lifetime;
Praise more, criticize less;
Hire more help, ie. baby-sitter, housekeeper, handy-person;
Reduce truly non-essential to-do’s”;
Learn the art of saying a firm yet polite “no”;
Reduce standards of perfection on everyone and yourself;
Create weekly or monthly date nights;
Change nutrition and eating habits (even in small ways);
Tap into old or new passions;
Adjust medication (with a doctor’s permission) to lower or eliminate any that produce unwanted side effects;
Find natural alternatives to medication to improve health, lower stress;
Take stress management class;
Find new employment;
Leave the workforce or propose flex schedule with employer, and;
Budget for a vacation.

The key is to observe, discuss and adjust. Assess your family’s overall "climate."

Ask everyone to make small, yet continual efforts towards creating positive change. Create an emotional environment where everyone agrees, "there's no place like home."