A Better Way to Make Family Goals

I read a lot of self-help and advice books. Stuff about money, organization, goals and so forth. I guess it's sort of a sick hobby.

There are tons of interesting ideas that pique my interest. And I try most of them, but by and large, the recommended actions are very hard to sustain.

But very rarely, I'll read a book and think, "Wow. I can do this. This is really going to change how I live my life."

I happen to be reading such a book now: Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! by Stephen M. Shapiro.

I admit it: I'm what Shapiro calls a Goalaholic. You just have to read the December/January entries in this blog to see that. But like most goalaholics, I never reach most of my goals. Some, certainly, particularly the career goals, but no where near most, and particularly not those involving my family. It's very frustrating, ugly cycle. You don't make a goal, you beat yourself up and you set the goal again.

Living your life through goals is also a good way to miss the best in life, Shapiro argues. Even if you achieve your goals, you can miss out on things that you actually wanted more - for instance, he was so focused on career success, he missed the fact his marriage was falling apart. And once the marriage was gone, he knew he'd rather have had the marriage than the great career goal - which he did achieve, by the way.

So, if you don't set goals, what do you do? How do you make sure you don't drift aimlessly through life, accomplishing nothing but an encyclopedic knowledge of sitcoms?

You use a compass, not a map, as Shapiro puts it. This means instead of goals, you set a direction, a theme, if you will. And you change it - as needed, but certainly yearly.

Setting a theme helps guide your decisions in all areas of your life and challenges you to bring more into your life of what you want.

The book offers some examples of themes that various people have used for a year or for their lives:

• Shapiro's overarching map is "to make a massive and visible impact in the world." One year, his theme was flexibility - which meant creating a lifestyle that let him follow different paths. Another year, the theme was platform, meaning a place to express himself - he wrote this book.
• Mark Grossman's overarching compass has been to be part of something bigger than himself, but to be true to himself.
• Another couple followed the following themes: Year of Exploration (She decided to explore her potential as a writer and started a book); the Year of Adventure and the Year of Lightness, (for some calm time, after the year her book was published).

Shapiro explains how you can do this as an individual, but I think the theme idea would work wonders for family. And the idea of setting a compass - an overarching direction - for a family just strikes me as brilliant.

I'll post later with a few ideas on how this could be applied specifically to build family identity and bonding.

Family | Goals | Book Review

Book Review: Chores Without Wars

I admit it. In previous posts, I may not have been fair to this book.

I'm not repenting of my previous comments, mind you. It does drive me crazy when parenting books suggest you turn into the parenting of the Stepord Wives.

But, nonetheless, I hadn't finished the book. And as it turned out, there's a lot of redeemable information if you can ignore the overly-pristine examples and press through the first 37 pages.

What's truly fabulous about this book is it addresses one of the most oppressive aspects of being a parent, but especially a mother: The feeling that you're ultimately responsible for everything.

And I've seen this worsen as the family grows: My friends have to harass their children to finish chores, homework and basically act as the administrative assistant for the whole family.

Micro-managing people will create stress, nagging and resentment on all sides. Plus, we're not raising our children to be functioning adults when we manage their lives, are we?

Chores Without Wars authors Lynn Lott and Riki Intner offer the only possible solution for this dilemma: Stop. Absolutely stop.

Of course, you tell them you're going to stop first. And here's the smart part - you offer to help train them, help them come up with solutions - but you don't force solutions on them. But you do stop doing it for them.

Lott and Intner offer you alternative tools for helping your family become functioning, autonomous adults. The tools are:

• Family Meetings
• Training
• Joint Problem Solving
• Family Routines

As I read on, I saw how their approach would free you by allowing you to detach emotionally from the issue. After all, it isn't your problem or your job as a parent to make sure children do what they've promised. It's your job to help them, to teach them, but it's not your job to do it.

Instead of the family secretary, you become the coach. You set up routines that will help the family train and learn to succeed. You bring up problems that the family needs to solve. You formulate the game plan - but you let them do the work and play the game. Brilliant!

Besides chores, the book discusses three other major issues for families today:
Allowances. The authors do not want you to use allowances as a reward for chores. Instead, they see allowances as a way to train children to manage money responsibly.
Blended families. It discusses how you can use the methods to integrate stepchildren and grandparents into your household.
Dealing with grown children who move back or refuse to leave.

So who should read this book? I'd recommend this book if you feel like:

• No one does anything around the house except you.
• A nag or b**ch around your family.
• Your stepchildren aren't helping out or your spouse expects them to do too much.
• Your mother, who just moved in, expects everyone to live their lives around her needs.
• Your teen refuses to help or take any responsibility.
• Your school-age child isn't expected to do any chores.
  
• Your children don't understand the value of a dollar.
• Your 24-year-old lives in your basement and won't get a real job.
  

Family | Books | Family Routines | Chores

More from the Chore Without Wars Book

And the laugh riot continues...Chores without Wars offers a list of jobs by age. According to this, among the tasks your two and three year olds should be able to do:

• Empty waste baskets (great - my little thumbsucker, emptying the bathroom waste. Lovely thought)
• Help clear the table (yeah, if you want everything broken and spilt!)
• Scrub the sink and tub (??? Really. Because I want a two-year-old handling noxious chemicals.)
  

My favorite, though, is the suggestion that five year olds can help paint their rooms. In what world is this a good idea??? Kids that can barely color within the lines, painting? Brilliant! Also, they should be able to take out the garbage. These people must have little garbage bags and tiny dumpsters. Heck, I can barely haul out the garbage without making a mess!

Here's a list that seems more appropriate to me.

Family | Chores | Housecleaning

Passive Agressive Parenting Books - ARGH!

I'm reading "Chores without Wars," a book that purports to turn 'housework into teamwork.' And something's been bugging me about this book but I couldn't put my finger on it. Until now.

After all, the book promises to do away with nagging and shouting and the usual arguments that go along with household work. Sounds great. Who wants to be that person anyway? I mean, I'm pretty sure that's core to the "mom" job description, but if these ladies have a better way, great! I'm all for it. I hate being that way.

First, the book starts by telling me I need to change my behavior and my way of thinking. Right off, that's annoying, because I've spent years trying to be a better me and I've had just about enough of it. It's a lot of work and frankly, the dividends just never came. Instead, people take more advantage of me and I'm a seething teapot of anger half the time because I never say what I really think because I'm trying to be a better person.

And since I've had my daughter, I realize that's all a load of crap. It may make you look nicer, but it makes you much less nice in actuality. It also makes you something of a patsy. And I don't want that for my daughter.

So, right off, I'm on my guard, but I still haven't pinpointed why. All of the above I figured out later.

Then I come to this scene, wherein mother Margie decides to give up reminding her seven year old of his promise to pick up his toys everyday. So here's what she does: She tells him their plan wasn't working, because he's not picking up his toys. He promises to remember - this time for sure.

Margie responds thusly:

'That's great. I'm glad to hear that, but I want to tell you want I've decided to do if you don't keep your agreement.'

You can almost feel the Grinch-like smile.

Lance asks what she means and the books says, I kid you not:

In a friendly tone Margie said, "I'm not going to remind you or nag you anymore. I expect that you'll do what you say. If you haven't picked up your toys by 5:30 each evening, I'll figure you want me to do it. If I do it, I'll put the toys in a box called the Sunday Box and you can get them the following Sunday."

Okay, on the surface, there's nothing wrong there. But after a few tries at this kind of logic, I realized I was turning into that mean girl who smiles at you so kindly just as she slips the knife between your shoulder blades. It's just so...cold and sterile. Like Margie's just waiting for the chance to take those toys.

And the whole book has been like that. You can almost feel how angry Mom is - and rightly so - but the 'better way' touted by the books is to set aside your emotions, smile and come up with consequences, which you then put in like a cold piece of steel. Not a good way to build a team, in my humble opinion.

Oh sure, there are caveats: Let them know in advance. Work it out together. Yadda, yadda. But in the end, every situation boils down to a passive aggressive move by mom. Teen not taking out the garbage? Change the night. Still doesn't do it? Set the garbage bags by the door and refuse to cook the next meal until he's moved it. It reminds me of first grade, where one dude would do something bad and the teacher would punish everyone. It's so institutional.

I'd much rather do it like this:

You know, it makes me really mad that you said you'd do this and you haven't. So I want you to pick up those tosy right now. Fom now on, if you don't pick up those toys when I ask you to, I'm taking them and you'll have to work to get them back. And if you don't miss them, well, I'm going to assume you have too many toys and we can talk about what we need to get rid of.

See the difference? One is emotionally honest and forthright. The other is just...passive aggressive and really mean. One is the person I really am. The other is...the mean girls who picked on everybody in high school.

Plus the book is all about how you're the coach. Have you ever in your life heard a coach talk like Margie? No. Coaches are no-bs kinda people. I think Mom's should be, too. Otherwise, you're just a bit Joan Crawford, aren't you? Yes, my sweetie, you are.

Review: The Book of New Family Traditions

This week's book is The Book of new Family Traditions: How to Create Great Rituals for Holidays and Everyday, by Meg Cox.

Cox breaks rituals into holidays, family festivals and ceremonies (such as birthdays, first day of school), daily, weekly and monthly rituals, (such as bed time stories, family game nights, monthly pizza parties), and rites of passage rituals. For the most part, these are collections of "here's a neat idea this one family did" that may or may not work for you. For instance, while I love the idea of marking a young girl's first period in some positive way, I really don't see me hosting a dinner for my pre-teen daughter with a group of women who share stories about their periods.

However, I might let her take the day off or buy her a special ring - two of the other suggestions in the book.

What struck me about many of the rituals in the book is they did not start out as conscious efforts to create tradition - and I think that's true of most rituals. You do something once, and it creates memories, so you do it again because your family liked it. Or you do something because your family did it. Rituals evolve, and anytime I've tried to just create one, it's backfired on me.

But rituals are important. Cox lists 10 good things rituals do for hildren - and I would add families. Among the list is impart a sense of identity - a pressing issue for families in a society that favors the individual's pursuit over the family. Rituals can also help heal from a loss or trauma, teach values, help us natigate change and provide comfort and security, according to Cox. But more than this, I think traditions and rituals bind us as a family.

There are certainly some ideas I plan to try. For instance, one of my goals is to widen my family circle by inviting friends and family into our home for dinners and board games. I've been struggling with how to do this - we're always too busy or the house is too messy or we're too exhausted. The book mentioned that one woman held Soup Dinners, where she issued an invitation to family and friends to stop by on a specific day from fall until spring for soup. She used paper bowls and plastic spoons and people could come and go as they pleased. She offered hospitality, a warm home, conversation and soup.

So in the New Year, my family will have Soup Sundays. Sundays are perfect because the house is usually clean and we're well rested. Soup is perfect because I can make it in a crockpot. But for now, I think I'll reduce the guest list from 60 to a few families, but invite different people each week.

I also loved her ideas for family prayers, since this is an issue for us. She suggests a moment of silence or a very simple, Quaker prayer: "Us and this: God bless."

There are some great puberty rituals, but you need to be pretty New Age or free spirited to try them.

For example, the book offers advice on going on a vision quest. The suggestions are great - have your teens do community service and discuss what it means to be a man or woman in society - but I just can't see ritualizing that. It seems like your results might be better if these discussions were more informal.

The book also seems to miss several opportunities, such as a ritual for marking family deaths or remembering loved ones, a ritual for a new baby, or a ritual for moving to a new home.

And some ideas are just silly to me. For instance, the book tells you how to make a talking stick for family meetings. Anybody who's seen Absolutely Fabulous will never be able to take that idea seriously. I also hated her section on chore rituals, which largely involve you distracting your children instead of them pitching in.

I liked this book - I really did. And I'd love to recommend you buy this boo through this blog so I can get credit from Amazon. But, to be honest, you should probably just check it out at the library and skim through it. Or, you can sign up for a free newsletter on family rituals through Cox's website. You can also view a sample newsletter online.

Family | Family Traditions | Book Review | Family Rituals

Book Review: The Busy Family's Guide to Volunteering

You may have noticed I've devoted a lot of time to volunteering lately. That's because Christmas is about giving, and I'd like to extend that giving attitude throughout the year. It's a value that's important to my family, along with empathy, empowerment and other lessons you can learn by volunteering.

I'm reading several books on the subject, but by far my favorite is The Busy Family's Guide to Volunteering, written by Jenny Friedman.

Friedman should know about family volunteering. She and her family have been doing it for more than 15 years. She's also the founder of Doing Good Together, an organization dedicated to inspring and helping families volunteer.

She's built a very convincing case for why volunteering matters and why it should be a family activity.

If you believe you don't have time, Friedman points out that volunteering offers a wide-range of options. You could simply dedicate one day a year - or even one half-hour a year, if you wanted. She also argues that once you try it, it'll quickly move from another thing "you have to do" to an experience you anticipate because it reaps so many benefits. Here's what she says your family will get from the experience:

• Opportunities to teach values.
  
• Feeling part of your community.
  
• Improving your children's self esteem, because they see that they can contribute and help.
  
• Strengthened family bonds.
  
• Opportunities for your children to see the impact of serious things you'd normally only preach about - such as not smoking, unprotected sex, and appreciating what you have.
  
• Teach children about the environment, medical field, and other potential career areas in a hands-on setting.
  

She also anticipates the hesitations parents will have about volunteering and addresses them, including "My children aren't interested" and "My children are too young."

The rest of the book looks at how to pick a cause, how to prepare your children, and chapters devoted to specific causes, such as building community, healing the environment, fighting poverty, social action and volunteer vacations.

But what I found most helpful is the Appendix, which offers ideas for family projects, quick projects your family can do in an hour, an afternoon or a day without any preparation, and a developmental timetable that gives you age-appropriate ideas.

There's even a section on volunteering based on holidays, a great approach that will provide multiple volunteering activites without over-committing your family.

All of which make this book a great resource for years to come. It's definitely Family Bookshelf material. However, if you're not a book person, do explore her organization's website, Doing Good Together, which offers much of the same information, but for free!

family | volunteering | Books | Book Review