How to Be a Family -- part 1/2: the Introduction

I made a commitment to try out, with my family, a set of lessons called Strengthening Families. The series was the brainchild of the group "Mothers Against Drunk Driving", MADD, and produced by a coalition of groups and individuals with similar interests. I had heard enthusiastic reviews of the series from a friend and I thought it might be helpful to other families I know of. I decided to go through the lessons with my own family first so that I would know what I was talking about.

The idea of dedicating 10 weeks of Family Home Evening to this project was a hard sell to my daughter. Just as soon as I mentioned that the introductory lesson required us to put a conversation jar on the kitchen table and that we would ask each other questions from it, she was dead set against it.
What? Did she not understand what I just said?
Did she think I said we had to eat the little papers for dinner? No.
Did she think that it meant skipping dessert or digging trenches in the backyard or standing on street corners with sandwich signs that said, "I'm a dork!" No.
For some reason, discussing canned topics from a jar on the table seemed like a really big deal to her. I still don't understand it.

We talked about it for a while. Then we set it aside for a while. Then I brought it up again. Eventually she got the idea that it was really important to me to go through these lessons and really do the assignments. And she relented. She wasn't exactly enthusiastic about the prospect of 10 weeks of lessons but she agreed to sit through them.

I have decided to chronicle the topics and assignments that we are working on in this blog. I am reviewing the first couple of lessons a little late since we started on Saturday, April 15th, with the introductory lesson. We scheduled the next ten lessons on Mondays for Family Home Evening -- lesson 1 being on April 25th. There will be a week or two when we postpone a lesson but we should finish by July 11th.

We have a pretty good family and I didn't think it would be too difficult to review and practice the interpersonal skills. I am finding out, however, that we have some room for improvement.

The first lesson was called an introduction but it had assignments too. The lesson topics in the introduction were how brain development can be impacted by choices we make, both in our actions and what chemicals we subject our bodies to. Alcohol is mentioned as one might expect, since it is a program sponsored by MADD. In addition, we were encouraged to stomp out negative thoughts about ourselves or others and have dinner together as a family at least five times each week and, yes, use the dreaded conversation jar at dinner time. We also were asked to improve bonding with our children by spending one-on-one time with each of them, at least one parent spending 15 minutes each day.

We usually do eat dinners together -- or so I thought until we actually started counting. And after all the trouble I had getting the conversation jar on the table, I found that I often forgot about it at meal time. I guess it looks too much like a sugar bowl. I don't worry too much about it though because I think we do have pleasant conversations at the table.
The challenge for my husband was to dedicate 15 minutes every other day to one-on-one time with our daughter. He admitted that he would have had a much harder time doing this with each of the other six children too. That would have taken almost two hours. The thing is, I think he did at least some of that when the house was full of kids. I think he just has forgotten how.
Daughter says that the hardest part for her is sitting through the video lessons. I am so proud of her for giving it a try!