George Bernard Shaw had it wrong.
He argued that "we must reform society before we can reform ourselves." In my opinion, he had the whole thing perfectly backwards. And Mahatma Ghandi backs me up on this: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." In between changing ourselves and reforming society (all for the better, I hope,) comes the eminently important task of strengthening one's family. And that is the what has been on my mind lately--creating a healthy community within my own immediate family.
"Your success as a family, our success as a society depends not what happens at the White House, but what happens inside YOUR house.” Barbara Bush
I am a parent of two wonderfully spirited young children, one boy and one girl. I enjoy placing my care of them as my top priority, but I often get muddled around the specifics of how to raise them. I have lately sought guidance from Stephen Covey, not personally, but I have his books. I've been focusing on the principles taught in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families," a spin-off book from his original, highly influential "7 Habits of Highly Effective People."
I've been implementing this book, little by little, in my family and I want to share with you what I'm doing and how it is going.
Hey, I have a good idea, let's change!
It is a cliche joke about the woman who wants to improve her family and the reluctance or even hostility her efforts meet. Not to be deterred before I even began, I decided to implement what I was reading in a safe, attractive way--with games and candy.
Actually, here's how it all began. I remembered the 7 Habits as an adult because I was taught them as a child. About a month ago, I felt I needed a parenting pick-me-up and asked my mom if I could borrow her copy of 7 Habits regarding families. She mentioned she had two copies and would I like to keep one? Yes. I had intended that this would be a personal, private journey working on my own faults, like Ghandi says. Covey didn't see it that way. A few pages into the book and he was telling me to get the whole family involved and on board. Well, this was my idea and I hadn't sought family input on it. So, I mentioned to my husband casually that I was reading a book that had some good ideas in it and I would like to implement them with the kids in the way I parent. He gets it. He knows I'm not a perfect mom. "And is it okay with you if I tell you about this stuff along the way, so you know what I'm doing and can let me know if you think it's working or not?" Sure.
The next night..."Honey, there's some good ideas in here for activities and lessons that would fit in well with Family Home Evening. Do you mind if I use some of this stuff in upcoming Family Home Evenings?" Sure.
Side note: Family Home Evening is a tradition within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of spending every Monday night as a family, learning together, enjoying each other's company, etc. It can be formal or informal, but generally our F. H. E.'s have a 5 minute or less "lesson" portion followed by a substantially longer activity portion and treats.
Covey himself suggests doing this. He doesn't call it Family Home Evening but he suggests families reserve one night a week to meet and assess how they are doing, to plan for things, teach values and have fun! We were already doing this, so all that was left was to plug 7 Habits content into our existing tradition. Not too hard so far.
First family "meeting"
Monday night rolls around and I am excited to begin implementing my plan. Covey suggests introducing this stuff with a flight plan metaphor about where you family is heading, how the winds of life can get you off track and what instruments you can use to get back on track. The focus in the beginning of the book is emphatically on this--you frequently get off track, the key is to keep going back to the flight plan and correct your course.
I like the metaphor for me personally, but thought I would alter it in presentation to my young kids. Covey suggested a game where you blind fold someone and then use the family voices to guide them back to a predetermined location outside your house. It was a cold and dark Monday night, so this simply would not do.
I grabbed two "Candy Land" game pieces and a blindfold. I also grabbed a picture of an LDS temple, but I would have used a picture of the Savior if I had one small, unframed and handy. We sat around the kitchen table, sang a song, prayed and began. One child was blindfolded while the other placed the picture of the temple somewhere on the table. The blindfolded child held his game piece and moved it around the table trying to land on the picture. After a few short moments of unsuccessful trying, the sibling who "hid" the picture started coaching her brother, without any suggestions from me. Dad and I joined in and our son was able to land his game piece on the picture. Then we switched and our daughter followed our vocal cues to place her game piece on the temple.
We talked about how life was a very important game. We weren't heading to candy castle, but somewhere better. We want out family to be together forever with Heavenly Father. We don't have a picture of Heaven, but the temple is a lot like Heaven. That is where our family is trying to go. Sometimes we get off track but as a family, we can help each other get back on the path. We can use this time we spend at Family Home Evening to talk about how we are doing as a family and help each other stay on track. This wasn't a lecture...we asked questions and our kids answered, they asked questions and we answered. Eventually, we got all the important points out.
Side note: We had this important discussion while we were eating treats. It helps our kids sit still and listen to us and each other if there is a sweet, delicious incentive to stay at the table.
After the lesson and while our kids were setting up the games they wanted to play in the living room for our activity, my husband asked softly, "so that was it?"
Yeah, we already were doing the first things Covey wanted us to start doing, meet together as a family, accept the premise that we were in this together and start considering where we wanted this family to go.
He seemed to feel good that this wasn't going to be so bad and off we went to play games.
2nd Family Home Evening on the Habits
The first Habit in the 7 is this: Be Proactive. Basically, you are in charge of yourself. There is a lot of good material in this habit, and it really matters that it comes first. I decided that what our young family needed most was the concept of the Emotional Bank Account.
Basically, all our interactions with others can be viewed as either making a deposit or a withdrawal into that person's emotional bank account. A high account balance feels good and helps us tackle difficult things, a low account balance feels bad and can make it difficult to do what's right.
My kids both have bank accounts, but I didn't want to get all hung up on money. Even better, my son had already encountered this idea in Kindergarten under a different metaphor.
As part of an anti-bullying effort, my son's principal had read this book to each class in the school and had initiated a school-wide campaign to promote "filling each other's buckets." Different vocabulary, same idea. I found the book quickly and easily in the Davis County library system. My son still remembers this basic idea and terminology from Kindergarten and I thought he would appreciate having an "advance" understanding of the concepts. He might even like to help me teach it to his dad and sister.
I also found online some fun supplementary materials, like slips of paper to fill out about how you put a drop in someone's bucket and what kinds of things "dip" into other people's buckets. I am using this stuff in my FHE this week and you can print them for free at http://computerlab.smhschool.org/Links/BucketfillerTeacherResources.html
I've rounded up a bucket, to be placed on the kitchen table for the week. At family dinners, we'll talk about the good things we did and others did for us throughout the week. We'll write those things down and slip our papers into the family bucket. We'll also talk about the things that happened that dipped into our bucket and left us less full. We may even read little notes we leave for each other, (compliments, thank yous and the like), to help put more drops in our buckets.
What I like so much about this idea of invisible buckets is the connection the book makes between your bucket and someone else's. This idea is in the Emotional Bank Account too, but the bucket picture book makes it so obvious and visual. The realization is that anything you do that drops water into another person's bucket drops water into your bucket too! Filling another person's bucket is how you proactively fill your own.
We'll include a quote from the recent session of General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Speaker was President Uchtdorf and the talk was titled, "Of Regrets and Resolutions." The quote follows:
"The older we get, the more we look back and realize that external circumstances really matter or determine our happiness. We do matter. We determine our happiness. You and I are ultimately in charge of our own happiness....We shouldn't wait to be happy until we reach some future point, only to discover that happiness was already available--all the time!...Let us resolve to be happy, regardless of our circumstances."
To back up all this learning with the scriptures, we'll use Psalm 118:24, "This is the day which the Lord hath made...Rejoice and be glad in it."
So, it's Monday, we'll see how it goes tonight. But already I am planning for next week. We have one more thing I'd really like to do regarding the first Habit: Be Proactive. Stay tuned.
"No other success can compensate for failure in the home." David O. McKay
