Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsWhat Is Family Love?Benefits of Family LoveEstrangementNegative Impact of the PandemicCreating Family Love With FriendsHow to Sustain Family Relationships

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

What Is Family Love?

Benefits of Family Love

Estrangement

Negative Impact of the Pandemic

Creating Family Love With Friends

How to Sustain Family Relationships

Close

The firstloveyou ever know often comes from your mother and your immediate family members. This unconditional love seeks nothing in return. Those loving times you remember cuddling with your parents, playing ball with your brother in the backyard, or getting ice cream down the street with your grandmother aren’t just cherished memories.

A family’s love psychologically grounds you and provides a framework for future relationships. It enables you to formsecure attachments. Securely attached children feel safe and cared for. If you had secure bonds, your parents were likely responsive and fulfilled your needs when you were young.

What Is Love?

Recent Research

A 2019 study showed that adults with higher levels of positive childhood experiences had lower odds of depression and/or poor mental health and greater adult-reported social and emotional support.

Estrangement From Family Members

Thus, rather than have tension and discomfort, you opted not to spend time with family.

What If Effects of the Pandemic Negatively Impacted Your Family?

During COVID-19, family dynamics often shifted. As a result of spending more time together, let’s face it. Many of us became frustrated with each other. Some relationships frayed. Unable to escape to movies or to meet friends, you might have even grown resentful of your brother playing his music too loud or your cousin eating your favorite cereal on a daily basis.

Consequently, you may feel depleted and, to be frank, less than enamored with these people. Many confess they are more alienated from family members now than before the pandemic, although the whole family still remains under the same roof or in the same apartment building.

Recent research from Penn State showed because family members were stuck together for more time than they were used to, people’s overall well-being began to suffer.

Others of us lived and worked across the country from our family. We couldn’t travel to visit them or perhaps we couldn’t give much time to loved ones. Maybe we felt guilty. Maybe we were relieved.

Disagreements over politics, wearing masks, and getting the vaccine strained family relationships. Perhaps you feel there won’t be a return to the way things were before the pandemic and that’s okay.

Coping

You can cope with estranged relationships and make peace with them throughfamily therapyorindividual therapy.

If you didn’t have a wonderful family experience growing up or don’t have one now, you still have agency in creating another kind of family. Family love can be found whether it’s based on bloodline relationships or not.

Family love can be built with a group outside of your family, such as your friendship circle. Rest assured you don’t have to be extremely close to your parents or siblings or children to have familial love.

The relationships you forge with neighbors, friends from work, or childhood friends who might be back in your life can serve extremely well as your family. Perhaps you’re close to college friends or church friends. You can establish your own close ties with people you choose to be with.

For many people, their close friends aren’t just “like family,“theyare family.The important thing is to have close, meaningful relationships as they sustain us.

According to a scientific review of about 150 studies that included 300,000 participants, people with strong social ties have a 50% better chance of survival than those with weaker ties. This is regardless of age, sex, or health status.

While we can maintain ties through texting or quick phone calls to just check in, you might want to devote more attention to these important relationships in your life. We need to remember that having these close relationships is a significant aspect of good health.

Tips for Nurturing Family Love

Let’s focus on easy ways to maintain these bonds; they matter deeply. Here are additional ways to nurture family love and significant relationships:

Hugs are important as weneed physical touch as human beings. In fact, during a warm and welcomehug, the hormone oxytocin is released, which slows down our heart rate, reduces stress, and lowers anxiety. In addition, the brain also releasesendorphinsthat flood us with feelings of pleasure and happiness.

There are many benefits of belonging to a supportive family network.  It’s an integral part of physical and mental well-being. Begin to focus your time and attention on those you love. Soon you’ll be creating fun times and happy memories.

3 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R.Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels.JAMA Pediatr.2019;173(11):e193007. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.3007Feinberg ME, Mogle, JA, Lee JK, Tornello SL, Hostetler ML, Cifelli JA, Bai S, Hotez E.Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parent, Child, and Family Functioning.Fam. Proc. 2021.Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB.Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review.PLOS Medicine. 2010.

3 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R.Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels.JAMA Pediatr.2019;173(11):e193007. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.3007Feinberg ME, Mogle, JA, Lee JK, Tornello SL, Hostetler ML, Cifelli JA, Bai S, Hotez E.Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parent, Child, and Family Functioning.Fam. Proc. 2021.Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB.Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review.PLOS Medicine. 2010.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R.Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels.JAMA Pediatr.2019;173(11):e193007. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.3007Feinberg ME, Mogle, JA, Lee JK, Tornello SL, Hostetler ML, Cifelli JA, Bai S, Hotez E.Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parent, Child, and Family Functioning.Fam. Proc. 2021.Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB.Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review.PLOS Medicine. 2010.

Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R.Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels.JAMA Pediatr.2019;173(11):e193007. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.3007

Feinberg ME, Mogle, JA, Lee JK, Tornello SL, Hostetler ML, Cifelli JA, Bai S, Hotez E.Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parent, Child, and Family Functioning.Fam. Proc. 2021.

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB.Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review.PLOS Medicine. 2010.

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