Strengthen Friendships and Family Ties by Social Networking

You can use social networking to improve your relationship with family and friends during your life after retirement.

Family Ties

Today’s hectic business and economic environment can put a strain on the family and extended family. There are ways to use social networking, both in person and online, to help improve your family relationships.

1. Spend more time with your children - If you have not yet retired, try cutting back on your hours and reduce business travel to build time with your children.
2. Be ready to take on a leadership role in your family - In this role, you could make family gatherings happen or respond to family member’s need for support. You could become the glue that strengthens family ties.
3. Forge links with extended family members - Since children and parents often live apart and more blended families exist, they can become disconnected. By building your phone and email list of family members, you can bring them together for important events or reunions.
4. Make everyone feel welcome in the family - Even if conflicts have arisen in the past, now is the time to reconnect. It may be hard to do, but definitely worth it.

Friendship is a two-way street. Since we all need friends, the best way to gain and reinforce friendship is to “give to our friends”. Studies have shown that the size of your group of social friends is the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction after retirement. One such study showed that those who expressed the greatest satisfaction with life had 16 friends or more. Those with fewer than 10 friends were less satisfied.

Here are a few suggestions to build your network during your life after retirement.

First, relearn how to make friends. Finding common interests, keeping your eyes open for opportunities to meet or talk, reconnecting with old friends from work, high school or college, working part-time or joining groups can help build relationships.

Second, use social networking tools online. The meaning of “Socializing with Others” has changed over the years. Sure, you can still call or write to friends and join church, neighborhood or industry organizations. However, the internet social networking sites have changed the game forever. You can still email or instant message your friends and family.

If you have not already done so, we suggest that you research and join some social network sites, such as facebook.com and twitter.com. These are fantastic ways to stay in touch and expand your communications with others, including family members. More social website will probably develop in the future as more baby boomers reach retirement.

Since the popularity of these sites have grown over the years, we wanted to include some 2010 social networking statistics for your review. Working through the social networking analysis, you can see the many people are joining the ranks visiting these sites and others, so they continue to grow.

You can follow your interests automatically by “friending” your financial services company, news organizations or such. They will automatically feed updates on their subject to your own page. Follow your favorite blog and make comments. Try starting your own website or blog and share your knowledge. Look up blogger.com for free set up.

Third, make younger friends. George Vaillant, director of Harvard’s study of Adult Development, states “Learning to gain younger friends as we lose older ones adds more to life’s enjoyment than retirement income.” Many younger people are attracted to the knowledge of a person who has more experiences. Older people like the energy and fresh ideas of those younger.

Last, life after retirement will improve when you make friends outside of work. It is good to form those relationships whether youare still employed or have already retired. Unfortunately, workplace social relationships do not always survive retirement for long.

Building your network could be the key to improve your relationships with family and friends.



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