Description: Making Families Work and What To Do When They Don't offers specific recommendations for increasing family harmony through more effective parenting practices. This important new book helps parents improve parent-child understanding and relationships by reducing the emotional interference--anger, betrayal, guilt, shame, and fear--that blocks healthier and happier family connections. Each chapter is laced with knowledge and therapeutic humor that examine dimensions to family living in a way that helps parents lighten up a little rather than tighten up a lot in dealing with their children. Parents will find that encouraging family members to take one another less seriously increases their opportunities for more constructive interactions.