How to Encourage Amazing Behaviour

This advice is fairly simple. Do not accept controlling or unacceptable behaviour from anyone, especially your family. There’s an old saying that goes something like: “You can choose your friends, you get your family”. There’s a lot of truth in that.
Unfortunately, the subtext really means that family life is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Actually, I’ve heard that 85% of ALL families are considered dysfunctional, in one form or another. We have massively impossible expectations of a happy family life.
I blame it all on The Waltons, an 80’s TV show where every family dispute was resolved quite neatly within each 50 minute episode so that they could all say good night amicably (with the immortal words: “goodnight John boy”). Let me tell you. Life is not like that. Some parents are cruel. Some parents are abusers, in the worst possible sense of the word. Wives can use children as tactical chess pieces in a marriage. Husbands can be unfaithful. Children can hate their parents. It goes on. Life isn’t perfect.
Speak to most parents of teenagers and ask how their life is. You see, young blackbirds are genetically programmed to flee the nest. Teenagers are no different. They are marking out their territory.
Of course there are going to be clashes. Even without teenagers, there are bound to be clashes within any family (or a degree of subservience that is probably unhealthy). You see, it is just life. With friendships, they will naturally ebb and flow with the tides. Some will stand the test of time, others will fade into the sunset. Some friendships get created at a time for a purpose and then those friends are never seen again. That’s okay too. It’s just the ebb and flow of life. Just imagine if you had kept in touch with EVERY person that you had ever met. Right from kindergarten. It would be a pretty big list and you would have to start writing your Christmas cards (or equivalent) in January!
BUT, with family. It’s different. Those relationships, in one shape or form, get to last. Think of them as crows on the washing line of your life. They are going to be there. Whether in your face or at a distance. Whether on your side or not, they will be there. Displaying their feathers. Following the natural pecking order that gets formed in any family. So, that brings me to this important secret: I don’t care who they are. Father, mother, wife, husband, brother, sister, son, daughter (etc.), it doesn’t matter.
Do NOT accept controlling or unacceptable behaviour from ANYONE, especially your family. Just don’t put up with it. Stand your ground. Be YOU and who YOU want to be. You will find that by refusing to accept unacceptable behaviour, then you will naturally start to attract the other kind of behaviour and that is simply – amazing!