How do you build a strong family? By paying attention not only to individual family members but to the family as a group.
by Dick Wulf
If members of the family do not consciously think about the family as a social unit, each person will focus only on his or her individual purposes. When these usually hidden agendas clash, conflict results. The family does not know how to handle it, since the family is not fully functioning as a family without a purpose to which all members are committed.
On the other hand, when a family is led as a family, careful time is taken to help the family adopt a purpose that is critically important to the family members. Expected behavior in light of this family purpose is discussed. I did this in my family when my oldest child was 4 years old, couching our purpose in 4-year-old language. As the kids got older, we went over our family purpose at higher and higher levels of understanding.
Our family’s purpose was to “become as a family and as people all that God wants us to be.”
Note that a properly stated purpose is a result, not an activity. Therefore, having fun as a family is not a recommended purpose, while being together “to make certain that every member of the family enjoys life” is an adequate purpose. It is measurable.
Without such a purpose to guide behavior, a family can become dysfunctional. Teenagers drop out of such a family since they were never card-carrying, contributing members of a group with an important purpose.
If you want your family to be a close-knit group of highly functional people, adopting a family purpose is critical. In the process of working toward a significant purpose with all its important goals, individuals (both children and parents) stretch themselves and become more capable.
Most likely you will want to propose to your family some purpose that specifically states or strongly implies an intention of helping one another be all that each can be. Two powerful possibilities emerge from such a purpose.
First, from that general purpose, you can help your family create goals for the family as a whole. For example, to develop into a helpful family, the family might decide to work toward the goal of being able to handle conflict calmly. The family could also set related goals for each member of the family.
Second, a family purpose can be used to measure what behavior is appropriate and inappropriate, right or wrong. For example, if one child takes something (steals) from another, it is not dealt with simply as an individual wrong, but also as something that negatively affects the family’s purpose. Likewise, when people do not do their chores, they can be confronted with the family purpose and shown how such irresponsibility affects others. The family purpose should make disciplining kids more understandable and loving.
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