On this edition of the Effective Living Series on Citi FM and Citi TV, the Global Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the HuD Group, Dr. Yaw Perbi, spoke about the traits of an emotionally healthy family.

He said emotionally healthy families don’t ignore sadness, anger and fear, particularly in Ghanaian society.

He explained that emotionally healthy families tend to face challenges and solve them, unlike unhealthy families who deny the impact of the past as well as the present.

Speaking to Bernard Avle, Dr. Perbi made a few points on emotionally healthy families.

Emotionally healthy families don’t ignore anger, sadness or fear: If a family is emotionally healthy, some key things they take note of are that, emotions are not ignored, especially emotions of sadness, anger, and fear.

They don’t spiritualise conflicts: Emotionally healthy families don’t spiritualise conflicts. One of the senses of unhealthy families is that they deny the impact of the past on the present. One side of unhealthiness is spiritualising away conflicts. For instance, if there’s a quarrel between mother, father, son, you see emotionally unhealthy families relating it to the devil. We actually give the devil too much credit. This mostly happens with spiritual people, they don’t deal with the conflict.

It’s actually impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. What determines your success is your emotional intelligence.

They take care of their emotions:  Emotions are incredibly important, they literally move us. We like to think we are rational human beings, but we are actually emotional beings. If you ask people why they are voting A or B, you will be surprised by some of the answers you will get.

The other part of emotions is that, without taking care of them and not allowing them to be part of our total development, we are not fully fulfilled human beings.

Parenting is very crucial: Families are absolutely essential when it comes to dealing with emotions. God first made man and said the man shouldn’t live alone and also created families. At the centre of the universe is a relationship right there. If society is in a mess, let’s check what’s happening at the family level to see how parenting shapes the world.

Listen to the full interview below: