Growing Great Families

Over many years of youth work and teaching parenting throughout NZ and Australia Ian and Mary have studied the keys to healthy functioning and fun filled families. They believe that at a time when there is a strong focus on specific topics such as what to do with unruly kids, we need to look deeper. They make a case for reestablishing the idea of growing great families through a strong sense of community. They believe that 'family is everything'.

In a world lacking in intimacy but swimming in sexuality we need to offer our children real intimacy and emotional safety. They need to know the security of a family operating as a team and receive the joy in their everyday experience of being contributors not just takers. Whatever we parents honour or treat as sacred or special, our children will also honour, whether that is the TV, regular family times or sport. Consequently this book is a call to refocus on what it is to create a family, to look again at what we are honouring in the little community we call our family and to think about our ultimate goals for the individuals and their relationships.

Growing great families covers the following topics: being a parent in the world we now inhabit; building the foundations; what makes a family into a community; moulding big personalities into a family; life-defining values; two pillars of great families — fun and communication; and moving from dependence to interdependence.