1 . “Quick, quick, slow, slow,” my husband said as I was trying to focus. We frequently stepped on each other’s feet. Both of us were being rhythmically challenged, and we figured a series of lessons might help us look somewhat elegant on the floor. However, it didn’t.

It didn’t matter that the lessons didn’t pay off. Our learning something new together gave us a string of good memories, such as taking a Thai cooking class on a cold Chicago night and learning how to make classic cocktails (鸡尾酒) in a common bar. These experiences are my best memories from the past 10 years. We always have such a great time when we’re trying something new together. It seems to have strengthened our relationship, and makes me feel like we have a closer connection.

It turns out that my theory is backed by research. One study shows that learning new things with your spouse (配偶), friends, or partners, can strengthen your connection or friendship. But how exactly does this work? The key is vulnerability (弱点). “Learning new things together strengthens bonds because it is at those moments that we can show our vulnerability to one another,” says Dr. Hisla Bates. When we are learning a new task, misfortunes and failures are bound to happen. In those moments when we fail, the other party can be there in favor of us. We can work together to find a solution, and working together helps deepen the connection.

The benefits gained from learning new things with your partner can come from activities as small as hiking, trying a new recipe, going boating in the local lake or taking a fitness class together. You don’t have to go bungee jumping or skydiving to grow closer. Try selecting activities that both partners are unfamiliar with, as this will ensure you’re on the same page.

Trying to learn something new together once a month will benefit you and your spouse or friends. Overall, some of my best memories with my husband are the moments when we are learning something new together.

4 . Search “toxic parents”, and you’ll find more than 38, 000 posts, largely urging young adults to cut ties with their families. The idea is to safeguard one’s mental health from offensive parents. However, as a psychoanalyst (精神分析学家), I’ve seen that trend in recent years become a way to manage conflicts in the family, and I have seen the severe impacts estrangement (疏远) has on both sides of the divide. This is a self-help trend that creates much harm.

“Canceling” your parent can be seen as an extension of a cultural trend aimed at correcting imbalances in power and systemic inequality. Today’s social justice values respond to this reality, calling on us to criticize oppressive and harmful figures and to gain power for those who have been powerless. But when adult children use the most effective tool they have—themselves—to gain a sense of security and ban their parents from their lives, the roles are simply switched, and the pain only deepens.

Often, what I see in my practice are cases of family conflict mismanaged, power dynamics turned upside down rather than negotiated. I see the terrible effect of that trend: situations with no winners, only isolated humans who long to be known and feel safe in the presence of the other.

The catch is that after estrangement, adult children are not suddenly less dependent. In fact, they feel abandoned and betrayed, because in the unconscious, it doesn’t matter who is doing the leaving; the feeling that remains is “being left”. They carry the ghosts of their childhood, tackling the emotional reality that those who raised us can never truly be left behind, no matter how hard we try.

What I have found is that most of these families need repair, not permanent break-up. How can one learn how to negotiate needs, to create boundaries and to trust? How can we love others, and ourselves, if not through accepting the limitations that come with being human? Good relationships are not the result of a perfect level of harmony but rather of successful adjustments.

To pursue dialogue instead of estrangement will be hard and painful work. It can’t be a single project of “self-help”, because at the end of the day, real intimacy (亲密关系) is achieved by working through the injuries of the past together. In most cases of family conflict, repair is possible and preferable to estrangement—and it’s worth the work.

5 . Being a good parent requires providing a child with the gifts of love, attention, energy, and resources unstintingly over a long period of time. It involves developing a small body, but it also involves growing a child’s soul.

Parents are an enormously powerful force in the lives of children. Whether Johnny can read, whether Johnny knows right from wrong, whether Johnny is a happy, well-adjusted kid, or sad and self-destructive, has a whole lot to do with the kind of parenting Johnny has received. If Johnny’s mom and dad have been able to come through with lasting, loving attention, the chances are that Johnny is on track to become a productive, compassionate (富有同情心的) person. If they have not, Johnny is in trouble.

Thirty years ago Chicago professor James S. Coleman showed that parental involvement mattered far more in determining school success than any quality of the formal education system. Across a wide range of subject areas, in literature, science and reading, Coleman estimated that the parent was twice as powerful as the school in determining achievement at age fourteen. Psychologist Lawrence Steinberg, who recently completed a six-year study of 20,000 teenagers in nine different communities, confirms the importance of parents. Steinberg shows that one out of three parents is “seriously disengaged” from his or her adolescent’s education, and this is the primary reason why so many American students perform below their potential and below students in other rich countries.

A weight of evidence now demonstrates obvious links between absentee parents and a wide range of behavioral and emotional problems in children. A 1997 study of 90,000 teenagers — the Add Health Project undertaken (承担) by the Carolina Population Center and the Teenage Health Program at the University of Minnesota found that youngsters are less likely to get depressed, use drugs or become involved in crime when they spent significant time with their parents. This study found that the mere physical presence of a parent in the home after school, at dinner and at bedtime significantly reduces the incidence of risky behavior among teenagers.

6 . The evidence for harmony(和睦) may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents.

An important new study into teenage attitudes shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past. “We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seem to be about their families,” says one member of the research team. “They’re expected to be rebellious(叛逆的) but actually they have other things in their minds; they want a car and other material goods, and they worry whether school is serving them well. There are more negotiations(协商) between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision making process.”

So, it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends. “My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17-year-old Daniel Lazall. “I always tell them when I’m going out. As long as they know what I’m doing, they’re fine with it.” Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees. “Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiations. For example, as long as I’d done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”

One of the researchers comments, “Our astonishment that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. Now, the situation has changed. Now families enjoy more harmony”

7 . Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.

“I would never have said to my mom, Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”

Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in different orbits (轨道).

Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve (包含) a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.

No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”

But family experts warn that the new equality (平等) can also result in less respect for parents. “There’s still a lot of strictness and authority (权威) on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”

Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these changing roles and attitudes. They see the1960s, as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic (民主) process that encourages everyone to have a say.

“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily achieved by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”