Why You Should Define Your Family Values
We all have those sayings we remember from our childhood. Our parents, grandparents, teachers, or other people with influence in our lives would say things that would reflect their priorities, values, and worldview. These would leave an imprint on our own understanding of the world, for better or for worse.
As a parent myself, I often wonder what my kids will think of my influence on their childhood. What will be the themes and takeaways? Which of my oft-repeated sayings will leave their mark and shape their future the most? What am I unintentionally communicating?
This led my wife and I to process and define our family values. While I invited some input from our children on what they thought were already our core values, I wanted these to be driven by Heather and myself. These are the values we want to be central to our family. This process was intended to clarify these values and allow us as a family to be intentional about regularly communicating them.
Here is why this matters...
You don't leave your impact to chance
Rather than allowing the values I pass down to my children to be the result of my random musings, I can play an active role in sharing with my kids the values I want them to carry forward from our family. I want to have an active say in the legacy I leave with my children.
Writing down the ideas/habits/values I want to instill in my children brings focus to how I parent. I can actively leave behind ideas that are a part of my vocabulary and thinking that I'm honestly not that proud of. I can't guarantee they won't come out of my mouth, but I can promote the things that I think are far better.
You create an ongoing dialogue
Being intentional as a parent can be challenging. I want to have deep conversations with my children, but I don't want to force it or make it awkward for them.
By creating family values, we keep the main conversations right in front of our kids - literally. We wrote them out on a whiteboard in our dining room and many evenings the conversation around the dinner table is focused on reflecting on the day through those family values.
For example, one of our family values is teachability. Sometimes the question at dinner is "How did you fail today?" If we never fail, then we never took a risk. I want my children to stretch themselves and fail often, so we can learn and grow. I want them to always have an answer to that question.
You gain a common vocabulary
As we have that ongoing dialogue, it's helpful to have a shared vocabulary. If you read the paragraph above and immediately bristled at the idea of seeing my kids as "failures" - then you know what I am talking about! My children won't see themselves as failures, but as humans who have to fail sometimes before we succeed. This shared vocabulary and understanding of the world will help us encourage and challenge each other.
You hold yourself accountable
This whole process isn't just about giving my kids a specific set of values. It's actually about developing those values in myself, while sharing them with my kids. And my kids are powerful mirrors that show me my own shortcomings in all of this.
It's time for a full disclosure. As I write this, it's been a few weeks since we've intentionally dialogued as a family about our family values. But I plan to change that very soon. The catalyst to restart the dialogue? Over the last week, my kids have mentioned a few times, "Why don't we do the values anymore?"
OUCH.
They see how I'm not holding up my end of the deal and they call that out. This kind of two-way accountability is powerful for me and my own journey. And the process of inviting my family to call me out and participate with me in our growth is a great check on my pride!
Whether you are single, married, have kids or don't, I think the process of developing family values can help define the "true north" for your family.
Where do you want the compass of your family to be pointed as you live out your life?
Don't leave it to chance. Write those values down and set a goal of reminding yourself of them regularly!
This is the first of a series of posts about the process of defining your family values. We want to share the practical process we went through to define our values and walk through our seven values in more depth. Copying ours will not be helpful. But reading through them might help you brainstorm your own list and give you the tools to begin this process with your own family.
