Professional Counselor Shares Five Tips to Improve Family Relations
Contributed By Spencer Williams, Church News contributor
Mark D. Ogletree, a licensed professional counselor, shared applicable, gospel-centered advice for families in a recent series of presentations to BYU Alumni Chapters in Nebraska, California, and Texas.
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A recent BYU Magazine article highlighted five tips to help improve family relationships.
Originally shared by professional counselor Mark D. Ogletree at a series of presentations to BYU Alumni chapters in Nebraska, California, and Texas, these tips share practical, gospel-centered advice to help families overcome challenges and improve parenting.
Seeing self-destructing selfishness
“Successful marriages require a high degree of selflessness. To be happily married, men and women should strive to identify their spouse’s needs and meet them.”
Manners matter
Alma 7:23 says, “And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times.”
Charity and change
When people realize they have the agency to choose how they act and react, they are empowered to make some real changes—in their own lives as well as in the lives of others. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “My beloved friends, a first step on this wondrous and fulfilling path of true discipleship starts with our asking the simple question: ‘Lord, is it I?’” (“Lord, Is It I?”).
Stop over-protecting children
Ogletree referred to a book by Hara Marano titled A Nation of Wimps. In her book, Marano talks about how when children are overprotected and overmanaged, they are unable to adapt to the “normal vicissitudes of life,” making them “risk-averse” as well as “psychologically fragile.”
Love in, fear out
Fear can blind one to the needs of those that surround them. Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “If we simply love God and love our neighbors, we are promised that we will overcome our fears” (“Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear”).
Read the full story on BYU Magazine.
