The Secrets of Happy Families Quotes

“In his work as a management consultant, Covey often asked his corporate clients to write a one-sentence answer to the question “What is this organization’s essential mission or purpose and what is its main strategy to accomplish that?”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“Create a safe zone. Every parent quickly learns that every child—and every adult—handles conflict differently. Some push back when criticized, some turn inward, some break down in tears.”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“The Starrs came up with a modified three questions for their family meeting. 1. What things went well in our family this week? 2. What things could we improve in our family? 3. What things will you commit to working on this week?”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“One of the things that happens in the world is that people try to avoid conflict. Whereas in the home, you can't. You'll end up getting divorced or becoming estranged from your kids. Keep in mind, the hardest part of any negotiation is agreeing to start it. Once you've gotten past that emotional barrier, the solutions usually present themselves.”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“A recent wave of research shows that children who eat dinner with their families are less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs, get pregnant, commit suicide, and develop eating disorders. Additional research found that children who enjoy family meals have larger vocabularies, better manners, healthier diets, and higher self-esteem.”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“By picking their own punishments, children become more internally driven to avoid them. By choosing their own rewards, children become more intrinsically motivated to achieve them. Let your kids take a greater role in raising themselves.”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“These days, the old rules no longer apply, but new ones have yet to be written.”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“After a few more weeks of equally uninspired gatherings, I called David. “You’re focusing on the wrong thing,” he said. “The purpose of the meeting is not to talk about each of you as individuals. It’s to focus on how you’re functioning as a family.” He was right. When else did we discuss this most basic thing: how we were a family. We redesigned our questions: 1. What worked well in our family this week? 2. What went wrong in our family this week? 3. What will we work on this coming week?”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“Agile terminology describes this type of flowchart as an “information radiator.” Having large, highly visible displays lets everyone on the team track everyone else’s progress. “If you have something public like this in your home,” Jeff said, “I guarantee you’ll get twice as much done. Guarantee.”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More

“A meta-analysis of sixty-six studies completed in 1992 found that mothers who have more support from grandmothers have less stress and more well-adjusted children. The more involved the grandmothers are, the more involved dads are, too.”
― Bruce Feiler, The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More