Improving Family Relationships With Emotional Intelligence
Want to improve your relationship with your family? Find out how emotional intelligence can be your best tool to overcome rifts and strengthen bonds.
Emotional intelligence and the family
Family is everything. Families are supposed to be the closest of allies and our most significant sources of support and love. Our interactions with our family members are often filled with misunderstandings and resentment. We argue and harass each other. We end up treating those we know best as strangers or adversaries.
Our first and strongest memories of emotion are created in the family, and they always appear there. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a powerful tool for achieving family harmony. Active awareness and empathy – the ability to be aware of, accept, and permanently tune in to yourself and others – tells us how to respond.
The EQ can be a powerful tool in your family, allowing you to control your relationships with siblings, parents, and inlaws. Others’ emotions can’t control you, nor can you blame conflict in the family on anyone else when you are aware of your feelings. Most techniques to improve family relationships focus on how you communicate your feelings with those who matter most since close relationships revolve around emotions.
Family contact is a burden without this emotional intimacy because no one wants to spend so much time with strangers. You must be honest and open with yourself if you want to help your family accept and love each other. The suggestions below will transform from common sense advice into highly effective ways to bring your family closer. Ten tips to help you get closer to your family.
Ten high-EQ tips to improve family relationships
- You must take care of yourself if you want to be able to care for others. Exercise is more important the busier your family schedule. You and your family could find ways to exercise together.
- Listen to get heard. In most families, the biggest complaint is a lack of communication. You may not be listening to them.
- Teach the emotional choice. You can manage your mood by allowing all feelings to be okay, but not all behavior. Model behavior that respects and supports the rights and feelings of others but also makes it clear that you have a choice over what you do with your feelings.
- Teach generosity through receiving and giving. Both giving and receiving are part of the same continuum. We can’t be generous if we’re not able to receive. And if we’re unable to accept, we have little to give. Selflessness taken to the extreme is not beneficial to others.
- Be responsible for the messages you send silently. Nonverbal cues are critical to the very young and elderly. Our facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice convey more than just our words. To assess our emotional consistency, we must listen to the style of our agent and examine ourselves in photos and mirrors. Love words spoken with clenched lips don’t feel like love. They need clarification.
- Do not try to solve your loved one’s problems. Care for your family does not mean that you take charge of their issues, give them unsolicited advice or protect them from their emotions. Allow them to know their strengths and let them ask for what they require.
- Create a lasting impression with your actions. No matter what you may say, your efforts will communicate your values. Do not be a nag, but rather an example.
- Admit your mistakes to all members, even younger family members. You demonstrate humility and emotional integrity when you apologize for hurting someone you care about. Demonstrate that everyone is capable of learning, regardless of age. You can learn to forgive yourself by apologizing.
- Find out what each person needs. You cannot assume that your grandmother will need the same love signs as your 3-year-old or that they’ll have the exact needs in the future. Ask!
- Be generous in expressing love. Every family member (especially children) can benefit from the emotional reassurance of loving words, gestures, and looks. The people least likely to demand emotional attention could be the ones that need it most.
Family Foundations for emotional intelligence
First, look at yourself. You can’t blame your family for how you are now, just as you cannot hold your partner and children accountable for your happiness. You can solve any family issue by taking care of your emotional well-being. You can help your family by asserting your moving needs.
Consistency builds trust. According to studies, a lack of consistency can destroy trust. If you are inconsistent with your emotional awareness, those who depend on and love you, including children, will become confused and scared. It’s important to maintain your understanding of your family.
Be aware that family ties can close our eyes to unique people. It’s easy to lose sight of this when you are proud of your family. You are not expected to have the same talents or interests as your siblings – even if you look similar. Or that you will follow in your parent’s footsteps.
Even if you’ve loved someone for a long time, it doesn’t make you a better person. Each of us sees only the changes in ourselves, despite how we all change. It’s frustrating to be treated like a fourteen-year-old airhead, even though you are now the CEO of your company. You can help your family break out of old patterns by showing them how you want to be treated. Only sometimes talk about ancient times when you are with your family. Show that you care about what is new by asking for details and listening with both your body and mind.
Beware of destructive emotional memories. When you hear your thirty-year-old self talking to a parent with the voice of a five-year-old, you may feel frustrated and weak. You don’t have to be snared in emotional memories anymore. Consider the memories that influence your behavior when you think out-of-control with family, whether you regret acting like a child with your parents or wondering where your anger comes from towards your spouse and children.
Enjoy every stage of your family members’ lives. Even though we know it is impossible, we still want Mom and Dad to remain the same and the kids to stay home forever. Accepting this fact is easier if you embrace the change. Accept the fear of aging parents, but try to use your awareness of emotion and empathy to find ways to cherish this unique moment. What is possible for you to share with your parents that was not possible before? You can still have fun while ensuring everyone feels valued and valuable in the family support system.
Ask if you need clarification. Accepting your fear of change will make it easier to approach subjects that may have seemed awkward in the past. Perhaps your parents are waiting for you to take the initiative. Try to feel them out. Change is one of many ways to enrich your family dynamics when you are flexible and healthy.
Use emotional intelligence to improve relations with adult relatives.
Lack of time and a surplus of emotional memories are two factors that threaten harmony between parents, adult siblings, inlaws, and adult kids. These factors contribute to the worry that we will be overwhelmed by our adult relatives’ needs and give up on ourselves. It is crucial to figure out what parents want from us. We also need to maintain close relationships with our siblings and keep the family together without letting every joke about selfish, contentious families come true.
We can have a healthy relationship without putting much pressure on ourselves. When emotional memories are triggered, we can recognize changes in people. If you keep your EQ high, your adult family interactions will no longer be dominated by cleaning up after mistakes or managing crises which have already led to disaster.
Improve your relationship with your adult child.
Parents are often surprised to learn they cannot sit back and relax once their children reach adulthood. Relationships never stand still. Your ability to cope with change and growth before a role switch is critical to maintaining a positive relationship with your adult children. Keep the lines of communication open. Your children will likely be absorbed in their careers, relationships, and friendships. Tell them how you feel and what you want from them.
You may need to adjust your approach to your children if you have only recently increased your EQ. They avoid you if you make them follow your advice or choose for you. You bring disappointment and judgment to the relationship that they cannot tolerate. Have you tried understanding how your children feel about their choices and listening with empathy? Have you tried to understand their needs? Listen to them and accept that you made a mistake. Here are some ways to close the gap.
- Explore why it is so difficult to accept your children’s choices when they differ from yours.
- Use the power of an apology. You can never be too late to apologize. You may not get anything in return, but you will know you did your best to make amends. How can you make amend?
- Discuss what each of you expects from the other. Please make a list with no more than seven items about what each of you wants and needs and what the other thinks you need and want from them. Compare your lists to see how well you meet each other’s expectations.
You can do this exercise even if your child refuses to participate or if you don’t want to ask. You can fill out the list yourself. Then, move to a different chair or position. Fill out a similar list in the way you would expect your adult child to do it. Compare. What does your adult child need to differ from what you offer? You need to acknowledge the changes in your child.
Reclaiming your adult siblings
In families with high EQ, siblings divide responsibilities between aging parents, and they look forward to gatherings of all generations, as everyone knows their strengths and weaknesses and how to communicate them. This is, unfortunately, not an accurate picture of most adult sibling relationships because history often intervenes. Perhaps your parents should have provided your brother with the same level of love and support they offered you. Childhood memories cause too much resentment and jealousy. It may have hurt you too much that your sister, who knew you well, didn’t notice the changes you had undergone over the years.
You can renew your relationship by using any of the suggestions in this article. You can reconnect by taking a trip together, where you are both comfortable and unbothered. Use your time to communicate “I feel” in an unstructured environment. Clarify that you are not asking your brother or sister to change by expressing your feelings. Listen to your sibling’s response with your whole body, not your prepared retorts.
Can you help your sibling reconnect if they are challenging to reach and an outing doesn’t work? You can do this by acknowledging their unique talents. Consider ways to make your sibling’s unique talents known.
Improve your relationships with extended family.
What are your feelings about your extended family, those you’re connected to through marriage or looser blood ties? You’re trying to create family bonds but don’t have the emotional baggage to make them last. Smooth because they’re not carrying the emotional baggage of your immediate family? Any relationship can be either. The difficulty of a relationship can depend on the importance you place on it and how long it has been going. The emotional impact of getting along with your new mother-in-law, or mother, can be difficult. Being friendly with the cousin you only see at family gatherings is easy.
What you want from your extended family relationships will determine how good and deep they are. No law requires us to love our inlaws. Many people do not feel the need to put forth a great effort. You can extend the same empathy towards your extended family for anyone else. This means you must accept the differences and find common ground.
You can become everyone’s favorite aunt, uncle, or inlaw if you listen, show empathy, accept mistakes, and use nonverbal signals. If you still need to arrive, here are some tips for making extended family relationships rewarding.
You don’t need to like everyone.
You may dislike a relative or inlaw even when you try to be open-hearted. Consider how your baggage prevents you from being able to appreciate this person. Accept your feelings, and only interact with this person to the extent you feel comfortable. By removing that stress, you can open your heart wider.
Only say something if you can ask loaded questions.
The emotional message comprises 90% of the information people receive from any communication. It is, therefore, essential to be aware of your emotions and take responsibility for how you communicate through expressions, gestures, and words. We are afraid to own up to our feelings, so we avoid saying what we mean. We manipulate people by making offers that beg for them to be rejected or by saying that we don’t care when we do and then resenting those perceived as the offender. It would help if you were not emotionally honest with your extended relatives.
