Family togetherness

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The text for this topic is copyright Parenting SA, Government of South Australia.

You, me, our mothers, fathers, uncles, grandparents and our cousins, we are all one big family. Our family is the place where we learn how to live, how to behave, how to treat people and how to respect everything around us. These teachings we pass on through the generations.

We do this by sharing! When we are sharing our food, or our clothing, our money and even our homes, we are also sharing togetherness and responsibilities, our time, our advice and encouragement, our support and our love! All this allows our kids to know, understand and identify who they are.

Even though we might live in another town or somewhere else, we are all still part of our community and can still help with the 'rearing up' of our kids.

This 'rearing up' is at the heart for us as a community. It lets our kids have close contact with their relatives. Our kids are then able to learn things, and they learn by hearing what we say, watching things being done and practice what they have seen and heard. This is a very important and accepted way of our family life and is a good way for our kids to learn.

To be there for each other and to have this spiritual connection is important.

These things might help

• Make use of our parents, our extended family, especially our elders, for they have lived and learned.
• Teach our kids to identify with and know their extended family.
• Teach our kids how to respect others and why it is important.
• Don't 'knock' but value the differences that each person has.
• Try not to do everything yourself... share it around.
• Remember its good to have time together, but its good to have time by yourself.
• Teach our kids how to do good things by what we do.

ACT Govt Publication No 10/0285 June 2010