The Beauty of Extended Family

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Have you discovered the beauty of extended family? Extended family members can greatly enrich the life of your family. Extended family members bring so much value into your life and into the lives of your children. Simply put, extended family members are a gift to you and to your children.

Whether your relationships with extended family members are a harmonious melody or bring a new set of challenges to overcome, welcoming extended family members into your family life is so important.

I have discovered five primary areas in which relationships with extended family members are a benefit to family life.

• Extended family members bring diversity to your life and to the lives of your children. Within the heartbeat of an extended family there are often very unique personalities and people with different lifestyles, gifts, and talents. This diversity is a huge asset to the life of your family.
• Extended families bring wisdom. Even if it can be hard to see, extended family members bring wisdom into your life. Oftentimes people within an extended family can have different priorities, traditions, and likes and dislikes, but there is always wisdom to be found, even if it is on the other end of the spectrum.
• Extended family members can expose you and your children to different experiences that you wouldn’t have been able to have otherwise. Maybe you have family members who have served in the military, been an agent of change in their community, or experienced great success in their career. It is amazing what experiences extended family members can share with you and your kids. Just remember to ask them!
• Extended family are an automatic support system. In most cases, your extended family is who will be there for you when times get tough, even if you don’t see eye to eye on things. Generally, within the context of an extended family, you will find unconditional love and a desire to help when needed.
• Extended family can give you and your children firsthand experience in dealing with a wide variety of personalities. Within an extended family you can learn valuable life and relational skills like conflict resolution, compromise, and the need to grant forgiveness even if it’s not asked for.

So, now that we’ve established the importance of extended family, let’s talk about some ways that we can grow these relationships. I’ve got five pretty easy ways that you can do that, too.

• Initiate. Just plan on being the one to initiate contact. That way, you can be sure that it will happen! Send a text, an email, or a quick message on Facebook just to let your family know that you’re thinking about them. You be the one to schedule gatherings, and they don’t have to be fancy since just a simple visit after dinner is more than enough. Oftentimes we try to make a big deal of things that don’t need to be, so we then avoid doing them altogether since there is just too much involved.
• Establish traditions that are important to you and invite extended family members to join in – even if it’s just over Skype. It’s important to maintain longstanding traditions, but establishing new traditions is also fun.
• Find a way to maintain frequent contact. Again, if you are separated by great distances, we are so blessed to live in an age where communication can be so easy. Take advantage of the many ways that relationships can be maintained across the miles. The idea is to have the contact be frequent, not flashy.
• Ask for help – and then accept it. Extended family members often love to help but may be hesitant to volunteer it for fear of offending or overstepping. Is there something that a grandparent can do that would benefit them, your children, and you? I bet there is, you just have to think about it and then ask. Most likely they will love it even more than you will~ Find small ways that extended family members can help and just go for it!
• Have fun together. Again, this doesn’t have to be fancy and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Fun can happen in all kinds of ways. Parks, playgrounds, and flying kites are all fun and free, but so are trips to the library, having a craft time together, or just getting on the floor and playing a game. The idea is to have fun together. Your recipe for fun is completely up to you!

Extended family members are such an important addition to the life of any family. Even if relationships are strained, great value can still be found – you may just have to work a little harder to uncover it.

Enriching your life and the lives of your children through regular contact and intentional relationships with extended family members will be something that is so worth the time and effort you put forth.