Quote of the month:

The way you treat any relationship in the family will eventually affect every relationship in the family.

-Stephen R. Covey

New Years has been a time of resolutions for the past 4000 years. Starting with the early Babylonians, people have been making resolutions for the new year. While the most popular resolutions have changed from returning borrowed farm equipment to losing weight, establishing New Years Resolutions continues to be a tradition around the world. (adoptionworld.org)

Many people have great intentions to make changes but fall short of completing them. Still, taking time to assess your life and set a direction for the future is valuable even if the follow-through is not perfect. This year, why not focus on resolutions that make a difference for your entire family?

Resolution #1: Find and highlight the unique characteristics of your family. Each individual within your family has different qualities, opinions, desires, and needs. As a family, there are also strengths and challenges. No matter what, you learn and grow from each other, sometimes in painful ways and other times in fun ways. Talk about and write down the strengths your family possesses as a group and as individuals.

Answer these questions together: What do each of you bring to the family that enriches everyone? What challenges have you weathered together, even if it was not perfect? When do you have the most fun together? Assessing where you have been and what will get you through difficulties in the future can be a great way to connect and point you in a direction for what comes next.

Resolution #2: Create a family vision and plan. According to Stephen Covey in “"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families", creating a vision of where you want to go is key to helping you get to where you want to be as a family. A vision is a picture of the future; what you want your future to look like. The vision should be shared by everyone in the family. Just the process of creating the vision together can strengthen the bonds in the family. Write down your vision for the future of your family, including what you want to accomplish.

A plan regarding how to reach that vision is important as well. Like any new years resolution, developing habits are what make those resolutions last. Just as working out for one month will not fundamentally change you physically, making surface changes in behaviors with your family will not change the relationships long-term. Habits such as prioritizing family, thinking in terms of “ "we" instead of “"me", communicating empathically, celebrating differences, and establishing meaningful traditions are ones that, if practiced regularly, can significantly change the culture of your family. “"The 7 Habits" has great ideas that can help with your vision and plan.

Resolution #3: Create a family environment that is positive and purpose-driven. Your family culture or environment is different than anyone else's. How you structure your time and interactions is up to you. You undoubtedly have pressures from the outside world that may include work and school, church and service obligations, health and emotional difficulties, as well as other stresses in your family life. These pressures can slowly seep into your family life and rob you of valuable time, energy, and emotion. Without actively planning for family time, family sometimes moves to the bottom of the priority list and before you know it, the kids are grown and you feel that you've missed important milestones, not to mention the little joys of family life.

Plan for family time by putting it in your schedule and treat it as sacred. Remember that dishes and other messes can wait, kids cannot. Make these times together focused on fun and save the discipline for later.

Resolution #4: Create your own family mission statement. Developing your family mission statement means that you agree on a purpose that is shared by the family. It gives a direction of where you as a family want to go. It will change the focus from “"me"” to “"we". All of you will participate in its development so each will have a stake in it.

Step One: Allow everyone to share their thoughts and feelings. Answer questions like: What is the purpose of our family? What do we want our children to learn as they grow up? What are the values we want to guide our family? What kind of feelings do we want to have in our house? What are the unique gifts and talents of family members? How do we want to contribute to our community?

Step Two: Write down your family mission statement. Have someone pull ideas together to reflect all family members' feelings and thoughts. This will be a rough draft. Share it with all family members and refine it as needed. Mission statements are as unique as each individual family so do not worry about doing it “"right". It can be done in any way that incorporates everyone's thoughts and ideas.

Step Three: Use the mission statement to help keep you on track. It is not a “"to do" list but a statement that will guide your family for years to come, like a constitution. Write it down, memorize it, put it up somewhere you can all see it, talk often about what it means, and use it to set goals and direction for your family. For examples of family mission statements, go to www.franklincovey.com.

Resolution #5: Do more listening to your family than talking. Sometimes life is so busy and over-structured that there is little time just to “"hang out"” and be together. These are the times that provide the best opportunities to understand and hear what others are thinking and feeling. These times can include rides in the car, time before bed, doing home tasks together, or taking walks. Turn off the TV and make the time to just listen and let your family know you understand them. An easy way to do this is to withhold your opinion and paraphrase what the person said.

While no family is perfect and most do not complete resolutions perfectly, working at these habits can make a huge difference in your family.

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