Importance Of Staying Connected With Family Members Who Are Away

Staying connected with family reinforces mental and physical health. Healthy family connections make sure that people have someone to turn to when in need. It helps in maintaining a balanced mental health. Often when children move away from their parents to pursue higher studies or to get a better job, it causes ‘Empty Nest Syndrome’. It is a feeling of grief and loneliness among parents when their children leave home for the first time such as to live on their own or to attend a college or university. 

Better family connection leads to a feeling of greater degree of support and relationship psychologically. Maintaining relationships requires effort.  They usually require work, love, understanding and sometimes forgiveness. Relationships test our abilities but they are rewarding.

In her book “Handbook of Family Communication”, Anita Vangelisti, a professor at the University of Texas, writes, “Communication is what creates families. When family members communicate, they do more than send messages to each other, they enact relationships”. Effective communication has the ability to cut both ways in a family relationship. Since the family is the primary support system right from childhood, we heavily depend on them for support and help. Most often deployed soldiers can derive great strength and support from a few hours of talking to a family member.

There are various types of support that one can derive from communicating with the family:

Emotional Support: It provides stability to people from emotional upheavals.  Sharing emotions, whether happy or sad, makes people feel better. 

Esteem Support: This kind of support helps to restore faith in individuals. It makes people feel good about them. It gives much-needed validation to people and helps them when they are not doing well.

Network Support: It gives people a sense of belonging. It provides the feeling that you have a place to go to, and people to turn to who would accept you no matter what.

Informational Support: People all the time turn to their family for advice. They might help one out with their previous knowledge and experience.

Tangible support: It refers to the financial support and care packages from home.

In this century, where people are always holding a phone in their palms, the flow sometimes gets complicated when it comes to reconnecting with family.

When it comes to seniors, family members are often the people they look forward to meeting the most. Making time for skype calls or family vacations is crucial.  It is preferable for a person to communicate by sending cards, brief emails, remembering important days and wishing them on those days, and sending texts. 

While not all conversations are deep all the time. People can also have easy conversations about dogs, weather and neighbours. These conversations always mean a lot of seniors. Exchanging information makes them feel like they are a part of your life. Communicating with family helps in re-living the happy memories and is also very important for our health and well-being.  

We live in a society so dynamic that we often get the feeling of forgetting to breathe. Social media and technologies are very advanced and they provide us with ample opportunities to stay in touch with loved ones. Making time to catch-up with family can also enrich our soul. Life is about experiences and people and not materials. Maintaining a healthy communication with one’s family helps them to have a positive personal integrity.

At Primus, we have created a happy community of seniors who have found new and meaningful ways to connect with those kids who live far away. Their full social life allows them to gain a fresh perspective on life and have conversations that add to their life. Our custom tool, Primus Companion ™ our custom technology platform — to keep you connected with each other, always. It also helps restock on prescriptions, buy supplies, or get health checks done, all of it is just a tap away.