When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence.
The simplest consequence of walking on crutches is that you walk slower. Every step must be a necessary one. When you hurry, you get where you're going, but you get there alone. When you go slow, you get where you're going, but you get there with a community you've built along the way.
If you tell your own story to your children - that includes your positive moments and your negative moments, and how you overcame them - you give your children the skills and the confidence they need to feel like they can overcome some hardship that they've felt.
Celebrate your family's bleakest moments and how your relatives overcame them. In doing so, you will encounter darkness, but you'll give your children the confidence that they, too, shall overcome.
After a while, a surprising theme emerged. The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: Develop a strong family narrative.
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