Notes from this Episode

Background

• This will be a pretty broad-based episode, so you might just say in your mind, “I’m going to choose one thing that we can really work on in our family.”
  • Choose one and then come back later and choose another to add in.
• There are plenty of experts who will tell you what will make your children happy, and society encourages us to pursue whatever will make us happy without regard to the effect on the family.
• Here are four things that, in my mind, will make you happy and will give you a tone in the home that will support and nourish your vocation, your husband’s vocation, and will really help your children grow up to be responsible, faith-filled adults.

Order in Home Life

• There are different types of order:
  • Our relationship with God:
    • Do we have an active prayer life?
    • Are we teaching our children to pray?
  • Our relationships with others:
    • Our first priority is our relationship with our spouse.
    • It is only in making our husband number one in our life that we will have the marriage that we need and want in order to raise the family that we want.
    • Our children should be second, and it is really important to develop those relationships between you and your children and your children with each other.
  • Order in our home:
    • A clean uncluttered home supports a happy home environment and happy people living in the home.
    • Children need order to thrive, and they need order in the home so that they know what to expect and feel like they are not out of control of their environment.
  • Order in our activities and work:
    • Does our work present a disorder in our family?  jAre we working all the time?

Respect in the Home

• Disrespect is never acceptable for your child to show you.  They can have all of their feelings and emotions, but once they turn into disrespect, they are no longer acceptable feelings and emotions.
• It is important to understand that our children respect us when we show respect for them.
  • Treat your children with respect while firmly and lovingly disciplining them.
• Children need to be in the habit of respecting their siblings and speaking to them kindly. 
• Children also need to be taught to have respect for the things in the home.  If they cannot take care of them, then they cannot have them.

Connection within the Family

• Have the kind of connection with your children that you want to maintain when they are older and ready to leave the home.  You want to be building it now when they are young.
• Teach your children first to have connection with God and a relationship with Jesus, and then have connection with God as a family.
  • Attend church together as a family.
• Connect together with different activities throughout the day.
  • A family meal is vital to have familial connection.
    • It doesn’t matter if the meal is dinner or breakfast, or even dessert, but it is imperative to have at least a 20-30 minute block of time to eat together and share what happened during the day, what is going on in the world and just connecting.
  • Connect with fun activities together but also waste time together.
  • Lots of physical affection is also very important in connecting with your family.
• The connection interrupter, of course, is technology.
  • The more isolated your child becomes with technology, the harder it is to deepen your relationship with them.  They disconnect from you and instead choose a false connection with anyone and everyone who is on the screen.
  • Children with more online presence report greater sadness, lower self-esteem, and constant anxiety of missing out or being rejected.
  • Do not let peer pressure or the pressure of your children’s “happiness” force you to make a decision that is not good and healthy for them and for your family.

Unity Among Family Members

• Parents – you need to be unified in your goals for your family, and you must be on the same page.
  • You need to be unified in discipline, and when you are not, it is critical that you come to a consensus for the sake of your children.
    • Otherwise your children will not know what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and unacceptable, and they will always use it to pit you two against each other.
• Know who you want to be in your values and morals, and in order to do this, think about what you want your family to look like in 10, 20, or even 30 years from now.
  • Describe the adults that you want, the family and get-togethers that you want.
• Consider what your relationship with your husband will be like in 10, 20, or 30 years.  If you are not nurturing it now and are throwing all of your nurturing into your children, you will not have a loving friendship and a loving, passionate relationship with your husband.