Family Emergency Kit: 5 ways to stop bad air

Mental Medicine Chest
5 ideas against bad air and bad mood in everyday family life

For 93 percent of Germans, family is one of the most important anchors for their mental well-being. At least when things are going well. But honestly, where is it always running smoothly? As a rule, there is a colorful potpourri of feelings that carry us through everyday life. After all, it’s not so easy to keep your spirits up on the feel-good barometer between mountains of laundry, school stress, doctor’s appointments, weekly shopping and job and to celebrate your existence as a parent with a smile every day. “It is impossible to completely protect your family from illnesses, to prevent demarcation, to satisfy everyone, to keep conflicts under the carpet and to stage every day as an event,” says family therapist Malte Leyhausen. But what you can do is make small islands to create that help us to get in touch with each other and to go to bed after a really bad day with a good feeling and the certainty that tomorrow will be a new day and with it a new chance to be in a good mood.

Family Emergency Kit

pondering bag

Everyone knows: Sometimes you get really stuck with your thoughts. They circle and circle and just don’t want to rest. Sometimes a hot-water bottle and a radio play might help. But sometimes that’s not enough to stop the merry-go-round of thoughts. Malte Leyhausen has a pondering bag up his sleeve for moments like this. “To prepare for the first assignment, typical brooding thoughts are written on a piece of paper during the day. The pieces of paper are put in a bag or an envelope. As soon as the brooding starts in bed in the evening, you get up and take your brooding bag to a particularly unpleasant place like the lumber room or the basement stairs. Here you have to ponder the thoughts on the notes for half an hour. After the 30 minutes you ask yourself whether it is really enough or whether another half hour is necessary. Only after careful consideration whether you have pondered enough , you can go back to your cozy bed. Have courage! The relief usually only sets in after the musing bag has been used for a few evenings.”

gratitude journal

Yes, we know it: Whenever things go silly, someone comes around the corner with this gratitude stuff. But that’s the way it is: It helps. Every night before going to sleep, each family member writes down three things in a notebook or app (e.g. “Gratitude Journal”) for which they are grateful that day. It’s quick and really effective when things just seem really bad. By the way, a study also proves that a gratitude journal significantly increases satisfaction with life and family (Seligman 2005).

Whine

Whining gets a really bad rap. Sometimes we just need that. But please not in an endless loop. Because whining is really hard for everyone else to endure in the long run and makes a really bad mood. That is why Leyhausen recommends three home remedies for whining so that nobody gets infected.

The VW rule

Wishing instead of accusing is the motto here. Because if we take a closer look, behind the accusations that we hold against our children or partners, our personal needs are usually hidden. It is not uncommon for the barrel to boil over because the accusations are answered with counterattacks. However, if we wrap our needs in wishes and at the same time explain why we need them at the moment, we will certainly gain more understanding and reach our goals faster.

memory box

The first onesie, the first self-painted work of art, the first milk teeth that have fallen out, the first letter you have written yourself: all of these things hold memories. Every special event in the family deserves a symbol or small memento that can be kept in a beautiful box for every child but also for every parent. And not only the beautiful moments belong there, there can also be space for the sad ones. Putting something symbolically in a box helps on the one hand to close it, on the other hand it is also a lot of fun to remember the great moments together.

The author Malte Leyhausen, born in 1968, studied educational science, German and politics (state examination) in Heidelberg. He has been supporting families as a systemic therapist and consultant (SG) since 2008. He also gained many years of experience as a trainer for personal skills, including in the training of happiness teachers. In his inclusion work, he supported students on the autism spectrum for five years. Since 2018 he has been coaching unemployed young people on a public contract. Malte Leyhausen has already published pedagogical non-fiction books on the subjects of procrastination, couple relationships and teaching methods for the school subject happiness. The author lives in Seeheim-Jugenheim on the Hessian Bergstraße and is a patchwork father of two children.

With his book “Family is nothing for cowards” Malte Leyhausen offers an alternative to unrealistic panaceas for family happiness. Rather, this book gives readers help to help themselves by inviting them to take a look behind the mirror of their own expectations. How do they make demands on themselves and on their relatives? What adjustments can they use to increase their self-efficacy?

The book was published by Edigo Verlag for €16.50.

barbara