How you and your spouse treat one another and the time and effort into your marriage will impact how your child treats their future partner. It can also affect their mental health, educational, and career prospects. No pressure!
That’s why it’s so important to make sure you are doing everything possible to strengthen your marriage against life’s unexpected challenges. This is why counseling is an excellent option for many people.
5 Ways Your Healthy Marriage Impacts your Children
Taking an online marriage course can do wonders for fortifying your relationship. By taking a marriage course, you will learn to deepen your communication skills and work as a team. Not only does this benefit your marriage, but it also promotes a happy home for your children.
Here are five ways to build love in your marriage and three benefits these practices have for your children.
1. Set a good example in partnership
An online marriage course is highly beneficial for couples – even those who do not believe their marriage needs “tuning up.”
Throughout the online marriage course, couples will be taught the importance of setting goals together. Not only does this foster a sense of partnership, but it also teaches your children about teamwork and respect.
Being partners means helping and supporting one another. It also means expressing appreciation for each other.
Research shows that couples who regularly express gratitude for one another had a more profound sense of commitment, intimacy, support, and marital satisfaction than those who do not.
2. Build an understanding
Many marriages falter due to a lack of intimacy and understanding. By taking an online marriage course, couples will be encouraged to show empathy, patience, and respect to their spouse. This will build a happier environment for their children and inspire them to be kind and considerate of others.
3. Spend quality time together
Research shows that children function better emotionally and mentally when parents put effort into their marriage. This means making quality couple time a priority.
The National Marriage Project found that couples who had a regular date night of one or more times a month enjoyed a deeper, more meaningful relationship. Those who practiced a regular date night were less likely to get divorced, experienced a boost in communication, and were more intimately satisfied than other couples.
Date night is perfect for parents since it helps them reconnect as romantic partners instead of teammates raising children together.
4. Strive to communicate
You likely already know how invaluable communication is to a healthy marriage if you are married.
Communicating is how couples get to know one another and build a sense of honesty together. It also helps couples to solve problems fairly and effectively. An online marriage course will help couples learn different techniques that will encourage them to tackle the problem at hand – not each other.
Children learn from observing those around them. Especially their parents. They benefit when they see their parents working toward healthy communication and solving problems as a team.
5. Deepen marital friendship
The Journal of Happiness Studies found that couples were happier when viewed each other as best friends.
Your children need to see that you love each other and like each other. One thing that best friends do is spend time engaging in fun activities.
Shared hobbies promote higher levels of marital satisfaction. Studies show that couples who did activities out of the ordinary (learning a language together or trying something new) cited a more satisfying and exciting relationship.
Friends also laugh together, which has been shown to make couples feel more satisfied and supported in their marriage. Those who make time for laughing are also more likely to stay together and share more positive emotions.
Benefits for Children
Parents are the first example of love, loyalty, respect, and teamwork that a child will ever see. The example they set can leave a lifelong impression on their children.
Here are just some of the benefits children experience when their parents happily stay together.
1. Create stability in the home
Children tend to blame themselves when something goes wrong in their parent’s marriage. In turn, they are more likely to assume the responsibility of mending their parent’s broken relationship, which can trigger severe stress and anxiety.
By putting effort into your marriage, you are ridding your child of unnecessary stress and giving them a loving and stable home environment that they can both rely on and feel safe in.
2. They do better in school
The effects of divorce on a child are extensive. Studies show that divorce nearly diminishes a child’s future competence in areas of future earning, family and romantic relationships, emotional wellbeing, and education.
Yes, studies show that children with divorced parents are less likely to attend college, are more likely to be held back a grade, and have lower GPAs.
By breaking up the traditional family unit, children lose out on necessary bonding time. For example, studies show that family mealtime can contribute positively to a child’s cognitive development.
3. Less likely to encounter abuse
Another great benefit of using an online marriage course to strengthen your relationship is your children’s emotional and physical well-being. For example, children living with married parents are less likely to experience abuse at the hands of a stepparent.
How you and your spouse treat each other can directly impact your child’s mental, educational, and emotional wellbeing. By taking an online marriage course, you will deepen your bond with your spouse and strengthen your marriage against any challenges that come your way. This will set the best example possible for your children.