Creating a Family Legacy: How Shared Values Deepen Family Bonds

Shared Values Create Stability

The terms value and characteristic are often used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly the same thing. Characteristic is an innate quality, whereas values are taught.

As parents, it’s your job to pass down the idea of what is important to you and to your family. This is the epitome of having values.

For some, this could be financial stability or having a good work ethic. For others, it might be to always help others or to create art for the world to enjoy.

No matter what you hold as important, this act of establishing values creates a stability within family units. In a sense, family members have less doubt and more self-confidence with one another because they know exactly what they stand for.

Shared Values Encourage a Sense of Positive Identity

As mentioned before, a family legacy can be either positive or negative. The outcome depends on what you as the family leader choose to reinforce within your own family.

Unsurprisingly, passing down positive values encourages the rest of the family to positively identify with the family legacy. Knowing that your family values something like helping others or a good work ethic can create a sense of pride. You want to be a part of that legacy and are enthusiastic about it.

Conversely, when negative values are passed down, it often creates a sense of shame or disconnect within the family. For example, a family struggling with alcoholism often values the ability to function while intoxicated. You’re sure to find less enthusiasm towards this family legacy than with others because of the damaging nature of what is valued.

Shared Values Offer a Strong Sense of Support

Commonly, there is a sense of support within any family, but having shared values significantly strengthens this feeling. When you share the same values as your family members, it creates an invisible bond between all of you.

As individuals, you give you time and effort to the things you value. As a family, you do, too.

It’s not always easy to follow through on living by your values, but it becomes much less of a burden and more of a goal when you’ve got a family backing you up.

Although family leaders are usually the catapults to establishing a family legacy, it takes the majority of the family participating to actually make it happen. It’s a family mission.

Shared Values Signify Unconditional Love

Unconditional love is something you typically want to feel within a family unit. Though, this isn’t always the case. Some families merely exist and procreate without any sense of who they truly are.

Creating a family legacy and establishing shared values demonstrates this much needed unconditional love. It happens this way because there is a very unselfish aspect to creating a family legacy.

The family leaders recognize that their time on this earth will soon end. Without a family legacy, their children and children’s children will be without guidance. In that sense, a family legacy is an act of love. Establishing one for your family is like giving them a key to the future.

Reach Out

If you’d like support establishing your own family values then please contact me. A family legacy is one of the most valuable pieces of history you can ever leave behind. I would enjoy helping you navigate through any emotional challenges to create a meaningful legacy for you and your family.