A successful family is something that, like many great things in life, take a lot of work. Confucius once said, "Govern a family as you would cook a small fish - very gently" (www.wisdomquotes.com). There are many different types of families, and there are many different paths to success. Adoptive families, crime families, one-parent families, the Homo-Sapiens family, there are endless types of families, which makes it hard to provide a model for success, because all types have a chance to be successful. Individuals can come out of a troubled family and have individual success, however people can come out of successful, happy families and have problematic individual success.
Many people see two-parents as successful, as it is assumed because of many studies to support the statement and some would call it a complete family. Two-parents does not make a family successful, it is in the parenting techniques that one or two, three or four parents use in raising their children while maintaining an inner happiness. Parents must spend enough time with their child, must teach them love, discipline, manners, and conscience, without giving in too often, without spoiling their child, without providing a false sense of security. There are endless duties a parent has for their child. Children respond quickly to their surroundings, and parents abilities. .
In my own experience, I worked with all first and second graders in the Physical Education (phy-ed) department at Hillsboro Elementary School. During my time there, I began to notice one child would act out quite often, and would go for a week where he was uncontrollable then have a good week, and it went on like this all year. As the phy-ed teacher and I had conversations I realized that the child spent one week with his mother followed by one week with his father, and every time he lived with his mother he would act out of order on numerous occasions, would come to school wearing dirty clothes, and with food still on his face.