How Happy Families Happen

Audrey Ricker
Hazelden Publishing (2006)
ISBN 1592853080
Reviewed by Irene Watson for Reader Views (2/06)

In the first chapter Audrey Ricker immediately starts relating to the reader by describing several typical homes, and then delving into a questionnaire. The questionnaire gives a score of whether “you really need this book” to “probably have a wonderful home.” If it’s the latter, Ricker suggests using the principles would help create a happier home. “Defining Your Values” follows. To me, this is the quick step to knowing that help is essential and that “How Happy Families Happen” will lead the way.

The first of the six steps is modeling – “do-as-I-do, not-as-I-say” – where parental action is the key. Although the steps don’t have to be in any specific order, the author gives them as: Consistency; Reinforcement; Showing Rational Empathy; Showing Care and Concern for Animals, Plants and Nonliving Things in the Home; and, Showing Care and Concern for all the People in the Home. Each step is fully explained, has examples, addresses the problem, and gives a solution.

Ricker has seven suggestions on how to implement the steps, some being: The Chart Method, The Discussion Method, and The Mind-Set Method. Each method has an explanation and ways to implement. For a better understanding of where the reader, who is more than likely the parent, is coming from in their own upbringing, Ricker gives a T and F quiz.

As I read this book, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own upbringing in an emotionally unhealthy household, and, how my upbringing influenced the way I treated my own children. We are set up and programmed in childhood to be dishonest with ourselves and others. We could not have lived our lives any differently because there was no one to teach us to be emotionally healthy. The only way to free ourselves and our children of the past is to start seeing more clearly as healing occurs. Ricker gives a simple, step-by-step method of how to create healing and free our children from scripts that have been passed down for generations.

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