Crisis Events Within Your Family Structure
Even the best-organized families will occasionally run into crisis events. And that’s when you have to make sure that you are prepared as much as possible so that the initial anxiety of the occurrence does not bleed into the rest of your lives. Even though it’s not fun to think preemptively about bad things, it helps in the long run. Even though it’s not fun to think preemptively about bad things, it helps, in the long run, to get your affairs in order.
A few of these crisis events might be if someone in your family gets a DUI, if there’s a death in the family, if someone has to claim bankruptcy, or if there is a divorce somewhere within your tribe. All of those things can be very painful, but extending the pain because you’re unprepared does not make sense.
DUIs
If somebody in your family gets a DUI, that can be a potentially life-changing event. Without the right legal representation, careers can be lost, jail time can be on the horizon, and serious financial consequences can happen. In the first place, you should never drive drunk. But in the second place, if you do get caught, you have to make sure that you have the best representation possible so that you don’t have to suffer consequences beyond what you deserve.
Death in the Family
Dealing with the death in the family can be one of the hardest things that you ever do. Especially if it’s a younger child, everything can feel very unfair about life. When this sort of crisis occurs, it’s a good idea to go to family counseling as soon as possible and make sure everyone communicates what they need to as quickly as possible. A death in the family can change the entire future timeline of a group of people or even a community, which is why it’s so important to have open lines of expression between everyone involved.
Bankruptcy
If anyone in your family has to declare bankruptcy, that can be a huge hit to the overall standard of living as well. It might be that credit cards were used poorly. It could be that the stock market changed. The loss of a job may be at the core of the bankruptcy situation. But in any case, you have to have a plan for what to do if financial burdens suddenly start piling up.
Divorce
When two adults separate, there can be a lot of pain that ripples through a family. Depending on how finances, housing, and careers work, divorce can present several sets of crises very quickly. That’s why it’s important, even if you feel like you’re going to love your spouse forever, to know what to do if you do decide to split. Trying to figure things out during a period of deep emotional tension is going to be much more difficult than talking about it in advance.
