Since that night I have felt much closer to my wife and kids. It’s hard to explain what I mean, but a lot of new doors have opened for me and things at home seem different now.
Weekly family times provide a powerful, proactive response to today’s family challenge. They provide a very practical way to prioritize the family; the time commitment itself tells the children how important the family is. They build memories. They build Emotional Bank Accounts. They help you create your own family safety net. They also help you meet several fundamental family needs: physical, economic, social, mental, aesthetic, cultural, and spiritual.
I have taught this idea now for over twenty years, and many couples and single parents have said that family time is an enormously valuable and practical “take home” idea. They say it has had the most profound effect on family prioritization, closeness, and enjoyment of any family idea they have ever heard.
Turning Your Mission Statement into Your Constitution Through “Family Time”
Family time provides a great opportunity to discuss and create your family mission statement. And once you have the mission statement, it can help you meet the need for a practical way to turn it into the constitution of your family life and to meet four everyday needs: spiritual (to plan), mental (to teach), physical (to solve problems), and social (to have fun).
Sandra:
On one of our family nights, we were talking about the kind of family we wanted to be as we had described in our mission statement. We got into a discussion about service and how important it is to serve one another—the family, neighbors, and the larger community.
So for the next family night I decided to prepare a lesson on service. We rented the video Magnificent Obsession. It tells the story of a rich playboy who became involved in a car accident that resulted in a girl’s becoming blind. It showed how he felt guilty and terrible about it and realized that his careless actions had changed her life forever. In some way he wanted to make this up to her and help her deal with her new life situation, so he consulted a friend—an artist—who tried to teach him how to give anonymous service and help other people. At first he struggled with it and had difficulty understanding the reasons he should do this. But eventually he learned how to look for needs in people and situations and step into their lives and anonymously create positive change.
As we discussed this movie, we talked about what a great neighborhood we lived in—how caring and responsible the people were and how much we appreciated them. We all agreed that we wanted them to know that, and we wanted to be of some service or do something for them. We created what we called the “Phantom Family.” For about three months at every family night we made a special treat—popcorn balls, candy apples, cupcakes, or something similar. We decided which family we were going to spotlight. Then we put the treat on their porch, along with a note that told how we admired their family and appreciated them. We ended the note with “the Phantom Family strikes again!” We rang the doorbell and ran like wildfire.
Each week we did the same thing. We never did get caught, although on one occasion we were reported to the police because someone thought we were trying to break in!
Pretty soon all the neighbors were talking about the Phantom Family. We acted as if we didn’t know anything about it, but were also wondering who in the world the Phantom Family could be. People eventually had their suspicions, and one night we were left a treat with a note that said, “To the Phantom Family—from Your Suspicious Neighbors.”
The plotting, drama, and mystery made a great adventure. It also enabled us all to learn more about the principle of anonymous service and to more fully integrate an important part of our family mission statement into our lives.
We’ve found that every idea in our mission statement provides a great basis for family time discussions and activities—things that help us translate the mission into moments of family living. And as long as we make it fun and exciting, everyone learns and enjoys.
By creating and living by a mission statement, families are gradually able to build moral authority in the family itself. In other words, principles get built right into the very structure and culture of the family, and everyone comes to realize that principles are at the center of the family and are the key to keeping the family strong, together, and committed to its destination. Then the mission statement becomes like the Constitution of the United States—the ultimate arbiter of every law and statute. The principles upon which it is based and the value systems that flow out of those principles create a social will that is filled with moral or ethical authority.
A Time to Plan
By creating and living by a mission statement, families are gradually able to build moral authority in the family itself.
One husband and father shared the following:
A couple of years ago my wife and I noticed that our summers were getting increasingly busy, and we were not spending as much time with the kids as we wanted while they were out of school. So right after school let out, we had a family night where we asked the children to tell us their favorite summer things to do. They mentioned everything from the little everyday things like swimming and going out for ice cream to daylong activities such as hiking up a nearby mountain and going to the water park. It was fun because each of them got to share what he or she really enjoyed doing.
Once we got all these activities out on the table, we worked on narrowing down the list. Obviously, we couldn’t do everything, so we tried to come up with those activities that everyone thought would be the most fun. Then we pulled out a huge calendar and planned when we would do them. We set aside some Saturdays for major daylong activities. We reserved some weeknights for those that didn’t take as much time. We also marked out a week for our family vacation at Lake Tahoe.
The children were very excited to see that we had actually planned to do the things that were important to them. And we found over the summer that this planning made a big difference in their happiness and in ours. No longer were they constantly asking when we were going to do something because they knew when we were going to do it. It was on the family calendar. And we held to our plan. We all made it a big priority in our lives. It helped us form a collective commitment, and this sense of commitment greatly strengthened and bonded us.
This planning also made a big difference to me because it helped me commit to do what I really wanted to do but often didn’t do because of the pressure of the moment. There were times when I was tempted to work late to finish a particular project, but I realized that to miss keeping the commitment I’d made to my family would be a big withdrawal. I had to follow through, so I did. And I didn’t feel guilty because that’s what I had planned to do.
As this man discovered, family time is a wonderful time to plan. Everyone’s there and involved. You can decide together how to best spend your family time. And everyone knows what’s happening.
Many families do some kind of weekly planning during their family time. One mother said:
Planning is a big part of our family time together each week. We try to go over each person’s goals and activities, and put them on a magnetic chart that hangs on the door. This enables us to plan family activities together and helps us know what others in the family are doing during the week so that we can support them. It also gives us the information we need to arrange necessary transportation and baby-sitting, and resolve scheduling conflicts.
One of the best things about our calendar it is that it’s by the phone, so when someone calls for a family member, any of us can say, “Oh, I’m sorry, she’s not here. She’s at a play practice. She should be home by five o’clock.” We feel good knowing where family members are and being able to communicate easily with their friends when they call. And we feel good knowing that the kids can respond to our calls effectively as well.
Having a family calendar enables you to plan quality time together, including weekly family time and one-on-ones. It also helps everyone feel invested in the family. The calendar isn’t just Mom’s or Dad’s; it reflects the priorities and decisions of everyone.