Key Takeaways
- Family love helps form strong attachments and supports future relationships.
- Feeling loved by family leads to better social skills and reduces mental health problems.
- About 27% of Americans are estranged from a family member.
Family love is one of our first and most important forces in our lives. It’s a foundation we often return to as a source of strength, comfort, identity, and encouragement. Many people find this connection in the families they are born into, but others discover it through bonds built by other connections. This idea of found family, or the people who stand by us by choice and not out of obligation, can be just as vital.
Keep reading to learn more about the importance of family love, how it benefits us, and how to foster strong connections with our family members, whether these bonds are forged by blood or shared experiences.
What Is Family Love?
The first love you ever know often comes from your mother and your immediate family members. This unconditional love seeks nothing in return. Those loving times you remember cuddling with your parents, playing ball with your brother in the backyard, or getting ice cream down the street with your grandmother aren’t just cherished memories—they are foundational moments that influence who you are today.
A family’s love psychologically grounds you and provides a framework for future relationships. It enables you to form secure attachments. Securely attached children feel safe and cared for. If you had secure bonds, your parents were likely responsive and fulfilled your needs when you were young.
Positive attachments and feeling cared for by loved ones lead to higher social functioning later on. Children with secure attachments can also more easily form healthy ties with others when they grow up and throughout their lives.
Benefits of Family Love
The advantages mentioned above regarding the fostering of secure attachments and higher social functioning aren’t the only ones accrued by stable family relationships.
When you feel safe, protected, and cared for during those crucial early years, you have a good framework for the world. The future outlook seems bright.
Living in a warm environment that is surrounded by a family’s love generates other benefits, including:
- You gain confidence and a high sense of self-esteem
- You learn conflict resolution skills
- You learn about communication and social interactions
- You have good physical health (thanks to home-cooked healthy meals, regular exercise and play, and early bedtimes)
- You become more resilient and adaptable as you and your family surmount challenges
- You feel like you have support when you need it
- You feel a sense of stability and predictability based on routine
- You don’t have to do anything to earn family love. You have it unconditionally—just for being born
- Your childhood experiences and growth are seen in a positive light
- You also decrease the possibility that you’ll have mental health challenges in the future
Recent Research
Early family relationships have a lasting effect on health and well-being throughout life. A 2019 study showed that adults with higher levels of positive childhood experiences had lower odds of depression and/or poor mental health and greater adult-reported social and emotional support.
Feeling loved by our families and having great childhood experiences when you’re young is important. The study also showed that enhancing positive childhood experiences may reduce adult mental health problems even when adverse childhood events happen.
Estrangement From Family Members
Of course, not everyone has positive childhood experiences with family members. Perhaps you didn’t have an idyllic childhood, and your parents weren’t good role models. You might have chosen to distance yourself from them by choice. Or, in later years, you preferred to strike out in a different direction than the one you were expected to follow.
Instead of experiencing that tension and discomfort, you chose to step back from spending time with your family.
About 27% of Americans are estranged from a family member. That’s according to a survey by the Cornell Family Reconciliation Project conducted for the book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, by Cornell University sociologist Karl Pillemer.
Factors That Can Negatively Affect Family Love
A number of recent events may have contributed to significant disruptions in family love and relationships. For example, during COVID-19, family dynamics often shifted due to spending so much time in close proximity. Spending so much time together made some relationships fray. Lack of personal space led to conflicts and increased frustration with family members.
Though you are related to them by genetics, being cooped up with family members can be challenging. That, combined with other stresses and demands, led many of us to feel like we weren’t getting the understanding or assistance we needed.
Research from Penn State showed because family members were stuck together for more time than they were used to, people’s overall well-being began to suffer.
Others of us lived and worked across the country from our family. We couldn’t travel to visit them or perhaps we couldn’t give much time to loved ones. Maybe we felt guilty. Maybe we were relieved.
Disagreements over politics, wearing masks, and getting the vaccine also strained family relationships. Research also suggests that political polarization has also created strained family relationships.
Coping With Strained Family Relationships
You can cope with estranged relationships and make peace with them through family therapy or individual therapy.
If you didn’t have a wonderful family experience growing up or don’t have one now, you still have agency in creating another kind of family. Family love can be found whether it’s based on bloodline relationships or not.
Creating Family Love With Friends
Family love can be built with a group outside of your family, such as your friendship circle. Rest assured you don’t have to be extremely close to your parents or siblings or children to have familial love.
The relationships you forge with neighbors, friends from work, or childhood friends who might be back in your life can serve extremely well as your family. Perhaps you’re close to college friends or church friends. You can establish your own close ties with people you choose to be with.
For many people, their close friends aren’t just “like family,” they are family. The important thing is to have close, meaningful relationships as they sustain us.
Research suggests that people with strong social ties have a 50% better chance of survival than those with weaker ties. This is regardless of age, sex, or health status.
While we can maintain ties through texting or quick phone calls to just check in, you might want to devote more attention to these important relationships in your life. We need to remember that having these close relationships is a significant aspect of good health.
Tips for Nurturing Family Love
Let’s focus on easy ways to maintain these bonds; they matter deeply. Here are additional ways to nurture family love and significant relationships:
Hugs are also important as we need physical touch as human beings. In fact, during a warm and welcoming hug, the hormone oxytocin is released, which slows down our heart rate, reduces stress, and lowers anxiety. In addition, the brain also releases endorphins that flood us with feelings of pleasure and happiness.
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
-
Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R. Positive childhood experiences and adult mental and relational health in a statewide sample: Associations across adverse childhood experiences levels. JAMA Pediatr. 2019;173(11):e193007. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.3007
-
Cornell Family Estrangement & Reconciliation Project. Frequently asked questions (FAQs).
-
Feinberg ME, A Mogle J, Lee JK, et al. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on parent, child, and family functioning. Fam Process. 2022;61(1):361-374. doi:10.1111/famp.12649
-
Laszloffy TA, Platt JJ. Divided we fall: Constructive dialoguing about our political differences within family therapy training. J Marital Fam Ther. 2024;50(3):523-544. doi:10.1111/jmft.12721
-
Yang YC, Boen C, Gerken K, Li T, Schorpp K, Harris KM. Social relationships and physiological determinants of longevity across the human life span. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016;113(3):578-583. doi:10.1073/pnas.1511085112
Thanks for your feedback!
What is your feedback?
Helpful
Report an Error
Other
