Happiness & Success
Achieving Happiness Through Acceptance of Life
The quest for happiness often leads to frustration, as many fail to realize that the...
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- Written by: Iza Kavedžija
Japan has long been known for its widespread respect for its seniors and a powerful sense of obligation to care for them. Yet as the demographic structure of society has changed, and the population has progressively aged, the provision of care is increasingly seen as a social (and not exclusively a family) concern.
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- Written by: Lynda G. Shrager
Statistics show that the average yearly cost of an assisted living facility ($49,635) or a nursing home ($131,853) makes these options financially prohibitive for many. The viable alternative is to safely age in place. The psychosocial benefits of remaining in their own home, continuing to be socially active in their community, and maintaining established relationships are priceless.
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- Written by: Alan Cohen
February is the month of Valentines, when our thoughts turn to love. Usually we give Valentines gifts and affection to romantic partners. This month I would like to shift our focus to expressions of love to our family, in particular our parents.
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- Written by: Mary Hayes Grieco
Our relationships with parents, children, siblings, and spouses can be very complex puzzles of love and frustration — we can’t live with them and can’t live without them. We often have long-held patterns and painful feelings related to our sense of worth...
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- Written by: Ulrich E. Duprée
Being happy is an attitude to life that is less determined by outside circumstances and more by inner qualities. A person’s character and mind is stable when their inner family is in harmony. As a metaphysician would put it: ‘It’s the same on the inside as the outside.’
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- Written by: Daniel Foor, Ph.D.
When I was seven years old, my father’s father died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His death rippled through the family, particularly affecting my grandmother and his sons. As a child I was shielded from much of this impact, and before this moment I had never...
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- Written by: Pamela D. Blair, PhD.
If we don’t see ourselves as worthwhile contributors to society and we don’t approach our aging with dignity and respect for ourselves, how can we expect them to see us that way? As we age, our families become helpful and supportive, or neglectful and critical...
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- Written by: Meg Blackburn Losey, Ph.D.
Parent issues are some of the worst and most longstanding issues we can have. When children do not have what they need, they spend the rest of their lives trying to change that. After they become adults, their attempts to find those missing pieces can create...
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- Written by: Eric Maisel
It is human to despair, and it is human to worry. But when either of these realities, or both at once, becomes the predominant coloration of family life, then you must contend both with your sad and anxious family members and with your own “sympathetic” sadness and anxiety.
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- Written by: Cliff Isaacson and Kris Radish
Birth Order Personalities develop as coping strategies each one of us used as children to make ourselves feel okay in our particular positions in the family.
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- Written by: Barbara Jaffe, Ed.D.
My mother never worked outside the home, and at that time many women were not encouraged to do so. She had the same limited expectations for her daughter, but she never took into consideration that we were different people and that my spirit screamed for more...
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- Written by: Gail R. Mitchell
Whether your mother lives in her own home, with you, in a facility, or a long distance from you, there are many things you can do to make Mothers' Day a special day for her. * Plan to spend loving, compassionate, quality time with her. * Engage her in discussions about her past and where she is now in this stage of her life...
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- Written by: Ken Branson, Rutgers University
People who have reached age 65 and still have living parents are more likely to suffer depressive symptoms than their peers whose parents have died, a new study suggests.
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- Written by: Hannah Hickey, University of Washington
Twins tend to live longer than people who aren’t twins, and identical twins live even longer, according to a new study.
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- Written by: Luke Pilling, University of Exeter and Janice Atkins, University of Exeter
The longer your parents live, the more likely you are to live longer and have a healthy heart. These are the results of our latest study of nearly 200,000 volunteers.
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- Written by: Supriya Singh, RMIT University
Most women who face economic abuse do not see it as family violence. But the Victorian Royal Commission on Family Violence connected the two.
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- Written by: Christopher Brown, University of Texas at Austin
Being a kindergartner today is very different from being a kindergartner 20 years ago. In fact it is more like first grade.
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- Written by: Donald Altman
The intimate connection we have with family gets embedded within our very being long before we can utter a word. Much of this initial wiring occurs in the right hemisphere of our brain in the first ten to twenty-four months of life. That’s when our brain begins to develop an emotional and social program.
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- Written by: Judy Reeves
From whomever or wherever we come, our present is, in good part, made up of the stories of our past. These stories can be thought of as the twigs and string and odd detritus that holds our families together, and in each of these stories, at least one of these “unpredictable personalities” wants to take wing and fly.
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- Written by: Noelle Sterne, Ph.D.
Love works when we envision anyone bathed in it and project it to them. It works even for those whom we rightfully expect should love us, we assume love us, and of whom we can list 5,328 reasons showing how they haven’t. Love is what forgiveness is about. These words apply, most of all, to our parents. Are you rebelling already, saying, “No way! Not in a million light-years!”?
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- Written by: Barbara Berger
Many people dread family get-togethers even if they really do love each other. We see this happening often – maybe you’ve even had this experience yourself and wonder why it’s so difficult. You really do love these people after all.
