Ian and Mary have studied the keys to healthy functioning and fun filled families through years of teaching parenting throughout NZ and Australia. They believe that 'family is everything' and emphasize that a family is a community and that this is the key to growing great families. Children need to know the security of a family operating as a team and receive the joy in their everyday experience of being contributors not just takers. In this way children will experience real intimacy and emotional safety. Whatever we parents honour or treat as sacred or special, our children will also honour, whether that is the TV, regular family times or sport. Consequently this book is a call to refocus on what it is to create a family, to look again at what we are honouring in the little community we call our family, and to think about our ultimate goals for the individuals and their relationships. Growing Great Families covers the following topics: being a parent in the world we now inhabit; building the foundations; what makes a family into a community; molding big personalities into a family; life-defining values; two pillars of great families fun and communication; and moving from dependence to interdependence. Once again these successful authors offer us great parenting skills that any family can use effectively, with great practical advice - including smart strategies, action labs and chapter summaries.