Airdate: Making Families Happy

Next week ABC premieres the 3-part factual series Making Families Happy, following on from Making Australia Happy and Making Couples Happy.

As the pressures of modern life impact on Australian families, it asks the questions: “What are the secrets to a happy family? Good communication? Strong parenting skills? Spending quality time together? Having good relations across the generations?”

It includes two psychologists, Clare Rowe and John Aiken (who recently appeared in Married at First Sight).

Over two months, three very different Australian families attempt to overcome longstanding barriers to happiness. They range from a blended family with five kids to a single mother with a 13-year-old daughter. Their problems are ones that all Australians will relate to. Poor communication, financial stress, lack of parenting skills, defiant teenagers – for the three families, it’s their best hope for change after years of conflict. Making Families Happy builds on and develops many of the happiness skills explored in the previous two series.

The families are guided by two experts: clinical psychologist, John Aiken (who successfully guided the couples in Making Couples Happy to happiness), and leading child and family psychologist, Clare Rowe. Together, John and Clare combine cutting edge scientific research with compelling, no-nonsense counselling to get to the root of the families’ problems. Every fortnight, the families are evaluated and scored (using a scientifically validated system specifically developed for the series) to determine their happiness levels.

The stakes are high. Results from the initial scoring show that some individual family members have low levels of happiness, and John and Clare need to devise interventions that target both their specific problems, and the wider causes of unhappiness facing their families.

Through group sessions, interventions, and scientifically proven techniques, the families face up to failed parenting techniques, broken patterns of communication, and lost parental romance. As barriers that have emotionally held them back for years finally break down, profound resentments are confronted for the first time. What they learn over the course of the experiment has the potential to impact on every family in Australia.

Though research suggests it’s possible to boost the happiness of families in only eight weeks, this is the first time that the experiment has been attempted. Will the science deliver, or will the complications of working with entire families in the real world prove a step too far?

Over the course of this three-part series, the families are pushed to their emotional limits. As their behaviours are challenged, do they succeed in their goal of becoming happier and forming deeper bonds? Working with families is a more complicated dynamic than couples or individuals, and John and Clare’s success is not a foregone conclusion.

As well as compelling on-screen drama, the series provides valuable take-away information for viewers, which can be used by every Australian – young and old – to improve the happiness of their families.

Tuesday July 7 at 8.30pm on ABC.