Thoughts on a Healthy Family

When I went to college, I majored in Psychology, but I minored in Child Development and Family Relations. I thought everyone should at least minor in CDFR. What more important thing do we all need to know in life than how to be a good parent and have a happy and productive family? What better topic should we study all the days of our lives?

"The family is still the most efficient means for producing human happiness and human goodness, as well as for preparing us for the world of immortality that is to follow." Neal A. Maxwell


Neal A. Maxwell taught some very profound things about healthy families:

"Of all the work of 'perfecting the saints,' none compares to that done in healthy families."

"Sickness of spirit in a family is carried just as surely as the flu."

"The next generation always lives downwind of the toxic trends of the previous generation."

“When some choose slackness, they are choosing not only for themselves, but for the next generation and the next. Small equivocations in parents can produce large deviations in their children! Earlier generations in a family may have reflected dedication, while some in the current generation evidence equivocation. Sadly, in the next, some may choose dissension, as erosion takes it toll. "


"The whole process of raising a family is one of perfecting our own lives. That which we transmit consciously and unconsciously to our children in their rearing in the home must be the best within us." Henry D. Moyle

I've always felt we owe it to our children to be the best person we can be. We don't begin to know how much influence we have on the earthly and eternal lives of our posterity. It takes a great deal of honest observation and introspection, a long view of things, and a great deal of discipline to do right by our families.

It is my hope that when we sit down in our heavenly home, that I will have done my part, that my family will be saved, that there will be no empty chairs at our table.

"I have learned in my home what I know about godliness.
And the theory I learn other places, if not applied at home, is useless." -Ann Madsen