Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. Section 12-4 Strategies for Healthful Personal Development 317 Relationships involve sharing feelings, experiences, problems, interests, and activities. People share and work toward common goals. They respect each other. They also trust each other, knowing that each is honest and reliable. Openness is also important to any relationship. Sharing thoughts, opinions, and feelings is key to a successful relationship. Unfortunately, some people lack this supportive network of people. They are unable to form meaningful and positive relationships with others. What happens when people lack these relationships? Self-esteem suffers. They feel unworthy of anyone’s love. People lacking close relationships may attempt to fi ll this void in various ways. For instance, a young woman may feel if she gets pregnant and has a baby, she will have someone to love her. She thinks her baby will always be there for her. This is the wrong reason for having a baby. She is choosing to have a baby for selfi sh reasons and is not considering the welfare of her child. Some young people join gangs to fi ll their need to be a part of a group. Once they are in the gang, they get trapped into participating in unhealthy or illegal activities that may include violence. Many times it is diffi cult to get out of a gang safely. 12-6 For many young people, close friends can provide support in both good times and bad. Analyze and Solve Consider a dysfunctional family, perhaps due to alcoholism, drug abuse, or family violence. Identify ways that teens in those families could cope with a lack of supportive relationships at home. How might they form such relationships with other caring adults and thus develop resiliency in their lives?