family and home - build a happy home
Build a happy home
“He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his own home.”
von Goethe
“Home is where the heart is”, the saying goes, and yet what does it really mean? Does it mean that your home is wherever your loved ones are, or does it mean you can’t have a true home unless you put your heart into it ... or perhaps a bit of both? At the end of the day, no matter how attached we might be to the building we live in, most of us would still agree that it’s our emotional (some might even say spiritual) home that really matters. After all, you can go into the most beautiful house and not feel “at home” there, yet squeeze together in a shoebox of a place and feel perfectly happy!
A happy home is a place that promotes a sense of peace, love and harmony (okay, maybe not all the time!) and that is a haven for all its residents. It’s a place where people feel good and where they want to spend time. The following tips will help you to create your own happy home ...
- Be a happy family
- Find your ‘feel good’ factors
- Make the place your own
- Give everyone a bit of space
- Make it a healthy home
- Choose your possessions carefully
- Be grateful for what you have
- Clear the air
- Delegate
- Invite others to share your space
A happy home is less about the actual physical environment - although that is important - and more about the people who live there, what they do together and how they treat each other. The moment you enter into a happy home, you can sense the feelings of love, care and respect that bind together the people who live there. Ultimately, the foundation for a happy home is a happy family.
Easy to say but not always quite so easy to achieve! So here are a couple of simple suggestions that can have a profound impact, and that you might want to adopt as part of the ‘ground rules’ for your own family:
- show kindness towards each other (remember the love)
- respect each other (listen and be prepared to learn)
- spend time together (keep the connection)
2. Find your ‘feel good’ factors
A home has to work for everyone in it, so that you all feel comfortable there. And yet you may all have different needs and wants, not to mention tastes! Depending on who you speak to, for example, cushions may either be important accessories or inconvenient irritations! So it’s worth finding out each individual’s ‘feel good’ factors. If your children are old enough, you can ask every member of the family: “What makes - or would make - our home feel like a happy home?” Get them each to list ten things, and do your own list, too. Bright pink walls and a Thomas the Tank Engine carpet probably won’t feature as highly as you might expect ...although a 42” plasma screen TV probably will! But you may be pleasantly surprised by the simple things that people want - lots of laughter and cuddles; yummy, nutritious food in the fridge; having dinner by candlelight; playing games together; and so on. If nothing else, this exercise helps you all to think about what matters most ... and what doesn’t. At the end of the day, Designers’ Guild duvet covers don’t mean a thing, whereas bed-bouncing antics (yours and your children’s) really do!
Think above all about how you want your home to feel.
This tip links to the first one, and is about the importance of making your home feel as if it’s really yours. It’s hard to feel comfortable in a ‘show home’ environment, where you daren’t eat a biscuit in case you leave a crumb! Equally, if you treat your house / flat as if it’s just any old place where you happen to sleep, you are less likely to care about it, respect it or feel truly at home there. Both are missed opportunities. It’s essential to have somewhere we can really be ourselves, relax and recharge our batteries, especially in today’s crazy busy world. So fill your home with personal touches that help turn it into your own special sanctuary - treasured belongings that mean something to you, flowers, candles, photos, your children’s ‘art works’, the colours, smells and sounds that you enjoy. Remember to factor in everyone’s needs and wants, compromising as best as you can. And aim for a balance between caring enough about your physical environment to make and keep it nice, but not caring too much. After all, there’s more to life than housework!
4. Give everyone a bit of space
It doesn’t matter what size your home is, see if you can find a way to give everyone a bit of space.
Physical space
Perhaps you could let your child have their own bedroom, or just a corner where they read or a part of the garden they can call their own? Not only can this help to solve some of the dilemmas that may arise around conflicting ‘requirements’, it can also give your child a sense of ownership and pride, and encourage them to begin taking responsibility for the world around them.
Emotional space
If you want a harmonious home, it’s important to recognise and respect that everyone needs a bit of emotional space every now and then. Just as you may need to put your head in the oven and count to ten occasionally, so your children may sometimes need to slam their doors and listen to loud music, whilst your partner reads the paper and completely ignores everything and everyone else! No matter how much you love each other, sometimes the wisest course of action is to “steer well clear”. Of course, this is easier to do when you’ve each got your own physical space, but it’s still possible even without. Just keep quiet for a while!
Maxine Fox, the author of 'Holistic Home – the Homemaker's Guide to Health and Happiness' believes that we are actually damaging our health through the “sudden and enormous burden of new and highly toxic chemicals that are being unleashed into our homes and straight into our bodies”. She recommends going back to the more natural household remedies used by our grandmothers: lemon juice, vinegar, baking soda and the like. These can be incredibly effective in cleaning, deodorising and disinfecting your home. Whilst they might sometimes take a bit more elbow grease, they don’t poison you, your children or the environment. Surely that’s got to be worth the effort?
The same ‘back to basics’ philosophy also applies to food and entertainment. It’s so easy, when we’re busy, to just grab a ready meal and slump in front of the television. In the happiest, healthiest homes, TV dinners may happen every now and again, but more often than not everyone will sit down together for a nourishing home -cooked meal, at which they actually talk to each other! They’ll also do all sorts of fun activities together that don’t revolve around a screen - games, jigsaws, crafty things, cycling, playing football, building sandcastles, flying a kite. Health and happiness go hand in hand, and both start at home!
6. Choose your possessions carefully
William Morris said over a hundred years ago "Have nothing in your home you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." He would have freaked out completely if he’d ever seen inside my wardrobe! The thing is, if you’re happy surrounded by stuff, that’s your choice … although research does show that a cluttered space leads to a cluttered mind. What’s more of an issue is when that clutter is actually making you stressed and unhappy. Many of us hoard things that we don’t need, and sometimes don’t even like, because we find it emotionally challenging to let them go. And yet it can be incredibly liberating to get rid of possessions - not only does it free up physical space, it also frees the mind. So, time to get ruthless! Use William Morris’ quote as a guide. Ask yourself what you genuinely need to keep (because you use it), what you really want to keep (because you like or love it) and what could disappear and not be missed? Unless you’ve got the space to store things properly, there’s no point saving them “just in case” you might need them one day. When and if that day ever comes, chances are you won’t be able to find them anyway! Remember, though, that someone else may be able to make good use of your old stuff, so take it to a charity shop, give it to a friend, ‘freecycle’ it or, at the very least, recycle as much as you can.
7. Be grateful for what you have
These days, it’s easier than ever before to get sucked into “keeping up with the Joneses”. We are bombarded with so much information and imagery about how life ‘should’ be - including what our homes ‘should’ look like - that we can end up feeling seriously dissatisfied. It’s true, there will always be someone with a few more bedrooms than we’ve got … but there are also people sleeping in cardboard boxes. One way to build a happy home is to concentrate on what you do have rather than what you don’t. Gratitude is a positive emotion, whereas envy can eat you up. So you don’t have that 42” plasma screen TV (yet) … so what?!
Teach your children to appreciate the good things in their lives. When they think something’s unfair (like not getting the latest designer trainers!) ask them to write down what they do have. Even if they just list every single toy they own, it’ll still make the point! And, as a family, spend time at the end of each day reflecting on the best bits, the things that made each of you happy. You get more of what you focus on.
Living with other people, no matter how much you love them, will always present challenges! If you want to have a happy home it’s important to learn how to communicate effectively with each other, especially when there’s cause for conflict. Shouting only makes your throat sore and, more importantly, creates tension and aggression. Equally, silence can be unbearable when it’s filled with bad feelings. So make sure you sit down together and discuss what’s going on. Listen to and respect each other. Treat it as a joint problem-solving exercise to come up with a solution that works for everyone involved. And remember, every problem has a solution, even if it takes you a while to work it out. Finally, it’s old advice, but good advice: “Never go to sleep on an argument.” It’s incredible how you can de-fuse a potentially explosive situation if you just clear the space and time to talk about things openly and honestly.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not up to you to do everything around the house! Instead, you need to work out, with your partner and children (when they’re old enough), an effective division of labour. It’s really constructive for each family member to have their own jobs and responsibilities, even if they’re just as simple as hanging up their school uniform and cleaning their shoes. Every little helps! And bear in mind that part of your job, as a parent, is to prepare your children to live independently of you. So, as they grow older, you need to gradually increase their responsibilities around the home so that they learn the skills required to look after themselves … like doing their own ironing. In addition, as family members, each child should also be expected to contribute towards the running of the family home. For example, perhaps your teenager could cook the evening meal every Friday night, whilst your toddler could help daddy to dust!
By sharing the household chores, you reinforce the idea that your family is a team, working together towards common goals - like a happy home! You also take the weight off your shoulders and free yourself up to have some fun. Which do you think your partner and children would prefer - clean house, crabby mum or a little bit of mess but a few more laughs?!
10. Invite others to share your space
Once you’ve worked on your home and feel happy and secure in your own surroundings, you’re in a great position to share this happiness. Invite friends and family round to spend time with you - they’ll add to the positive energies and homely atmosphere, and help create new memories. And don’t be put off by the thought of all the cleaning and catering. As long as your house is hygienic, it doesn’t have to be spotless - no-one’s going to notice a sprinkling of dust on the mantelpiece (well, apart from your mother-in-law that is!). Ask your guests to help with the food, either by bringing along part of the meal or by giving you a hand with the preparation while you chat. The vast majority of people would far rather chip in than not see you! Let’s face it, we’ve all experienced those wonderful impromptu gatherings that happen when friends just drop by out of the blue, and they’re often the best. Even beans on toast can seem extra delicious when eaten in good company!
A happy home is inspiring and has a positive influence on everyone who enters it. It’s a great place to be - you’ll know you’ve achieved it when you get a steady stream of visitors!
