How you as a family approach your spiritual life is of course a deeply personal issue, but all the research points to its importance. Whether you attend religious services of some kind, pray together (also associated with greater marital and family relationship satisfaction and trust), read faith texts, practice spiritual meditation, or some other practice, your family benefits from a disciplined, mindful approach to faith. Whatever it is, do it together, and probably even with other families. The research generally points to the fact that it is communal faith vs. a more individualistic, personal faith that confers a myriad of benefits. And be intentional about explaining to your children why you as a family do what you do.

We are wired to need each other to fulfill our greater purpose, and we find that belonging and purpose first in the family. From earliest childhood, human beings experiment with belonging in the family unit.