SHAPING YOUR FAMILY’S FUTURE


INTRODUCTION


way. When you see the hurt child behind your father’s rage or the loss behind your sister’s bitterness, suddenly your heart can open up and let go of the anger that prevents you from extending grace and moving forward with a sense of peace and contentment. Our hope is that you learn how to love and forgive yourself as well as your relatives. For more about this, click the button.


Your Other Family Tree You’ve probably realized that your role as a


iA•TALK IT OVER


parent begins long before you ever hold a child in your arms. If you’re pregnant, being a parent has already impacted the way you look and feel. Even if you’re adopting a child, parenting has demanded your time and energy (the endless paperwork! the countless visits with the adoption agency!). Your notion of being a parent began back when you were just a child yourself. Becoming a confident parent involves understanding the things that shape us as people and as parents. One of the biggest factors that shapes us is the family in which we grew up or ‘our family of origin’. We know that genetics plays a role in personality. Many of us grew up hearing messages such as “You’ve got your grandfather’s sense of humor” or “You’re stubborn like your mother.” But these connections run deeper than you think. There’s actually a name for this idea: Family Systems Theory (which we abbreviate as FST). FST builds on the idea that the patterns in a person’s family of origin shape how a person thinks and feels about everything from marriage to work and responsibilities. Patterns color the way a person acts as a parent. Whether you follow or reject the pattern laid out by your family of origin, your actions and attitudes are still rooted in your family history. Just as we learned mannerisms and language from our


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