Home is basically where you spend most of your time with the people that you love. Spending time at home with your family is one of the positive things that this pandemic has brought about. With our current work from home set-up, many have the privilege of just staying at home and being with their families. However, we can’t deny the fact that conflicts can often arise even, and most especially, in your own home. Why? Because each one has different personalities and those differences in the personalities can surely spark offenses and conflicts.  However, whether we like it or not, we have to deal with those differences and the conflicts that living together can bring about. If you want to maintain a loving and peaceful atmosphere at home, you have no other choice but to deal with your spouse’s indifference nor your children’s tantrums.  Dealing with different personalities at home can be both fun and tough because you have to be with these people every day. As well as that, you have to continually fight for unity at home regardless of your differences. Despite all of the differences, there is beauty that you can find as you are united with your family members.  The question is, “how do you deal with different personalities at home?”  

Be intentional in knowing them.

There is one truth that you need to know “each one is different”. By letting this truth sink in your heart is the starting point of knowing your family members intentionally. Each one is different. Each one is unique. There’s no one size fit all approach in getting other people. Even if you have lived with those people for the longest time, there is still something that you do not know about them. This is the reason why you need to be intentional and to put extra effort into getting to know each one.  You can start by knowing other people’s love languages. Everyone wants to be loved and by showing love to other people, you can be assured that offenses and conflicts at home will be lessened. There’s no cookie-cut way to do this. Intentionality is the key. If your husband loves to be affirmed, then affirm him as much as you can. If your wife loves to be served, then serve her from time to time. If your children love to be with you, then spend as much time as you can with them, make time for time. You see, there are a lot of ways to express and show love to others. And as you do, for sure they will return that to you and your home will surely be filled with love.  

Plan to spend time with them.

Spending quality time can make everyone at home to be more comfortable with each other. We can’t deny the fact that even though we are living in the same house with our spouse and with our children, we often don’t get the chance to spend much quality time with them given the busyness in our schedules. Aside from that, children nowadays would choose to glue themselves in their gadgets rather than spending time with each other. This is the reason why this takes planning. You must spend time with them either individually or as one whole family. By spending quality time, people at home grow in their relationship with one another and become more bonded, thus, misunderstandings and offenses are being lessened. So whether spending time individually or as a whole family, start planning it out. Plan a candlelight dinner date with your spouse or a gameday weekend with your children. Relationships grow as you spend more time with the people that you love. So go ahead and start planning things out!  

Serve them 

Loving is serving. Whether in your little ways or in ways that are way beyond what you think you can, it is always good to serve the ones that you love.  Serving these different personalities will never put you in the wrong position. By showing genuine care for them, people in your very homes will feel the love that you have for them, resulting in lesser conflicts and offenses, and an increase in love and unity. Can you imagine a home where you begin to build that culture of out-serving one another? Building the right culture at home starts with you. Whether you are a husband, a wife, or a child, you can begin to build a culture of love and unity and not of hate and disagreement. One of the best ways to start is by serving. Serve the people at home despite the differences in the personalities that you have.  

Conclusion

Each one of the household members has a distinct personality. That’s something that we cannot avoid because each one of us is unique. However, despite the differences that we have, it is possible to lessen the conflicts and misunderstandings, and most especially to love one another.  This is what makes up the beauty of a family, seeing different personalities loving each other.   And if you are someone who happens to live with people who are not your family, it is still possible to deal with those differences in the personality. It is hard to live with strangers in your own home. This is the reason why all the more be intentional in knowing them, all the more plan to spend time with them, and to all the more serve them.