Family Happiness Factors
While I was raising my family, I waited tables in a very busy - and a whole lotta crazy - diner in a small town in Upstate NY. It’s still the hotspot where locals gather to debate how much snow actually fell overnight or to complain about the tax rates. We started our days early; I had to be to work by 4 am.
When I began this schedule, my oldest son was four. I worked these same hours while expecting my second son.
Four days a week for 19 years my alarm went off at 2:45 am. (Yawn… I’m getting tired just thinking about it.)
I would not have survived - nor would have anyone else in my home - without a whole lot of planning and preparation in order to accommodate my responsibilities and need for sleep. I had to navigate between standing firm in the expectations I had of my children and keeping the house afloat. By including them from an early age, they were able to understand the expectations and rewards that come with contribution and responsibility.
With everyone currently at home and in each other’s space considerably more than anyone could have ever anticipated, let’s begin to identify some techniques and strategies to help keep the happiness factor alive and flowing.
By implementing systems that support each and every family member, you are creating an environment where everyone feels valued and heard. By creating a home with clear communication, you are able to remove assumptions that things are magically going to get done. By taking the time to recognize different strengths and providing clear direction, you are eliminating confusion while adding self-confidence and cohesiveness.
It’s challenging to constantly feel behind the ball or frustrated with your family. Instead, I want you to feel empowered and confident. Let’s prime your environment for success.
Family Command Center
A family command center is a designated place within your home that serves as a centralized location to help keep your home functioning smoothly. Before you establish a family command center, you need to define its purpose. What do you need this space to be? Perhaps a mail sorting station or a place to keep your ongoing grocery list. What do you need this not to be? You don’t want it to be a drop zone or catchall for everything that has no home. Have the family help define it.
Potential components may include a family calendar, a cork board or magnetic board. It could be stationary (desk) or mobile (rolling cart). It might just be a small area near the kitchen. It could include a place for keys, a charging station, basket for eyeglasses, laptop, invitations, post-it note reminders, game schedules, agendas, etc.
Locate it in a place that works with the flow of your family.
Family Meeting
Families are struggling with work-life balance. There is a perception - especially through social media pressure - to do it all and never fail. This can create added stress and anxiety. Without proper preparation and systems in place, we end up feeling overwhelmed and forgetful. Family meetings can boost self-esteem, reduce stress, and improve communication. They can provide a platform to discuss what’s working, and what’s not working, address upcoming due dates and projects, as well as meal plan for the week.
It’s imperative to define and discuss roles and responsibilities. Everyone needs to understand they are a part of the whole.
By establishing guidelines and opening the floor for questions and comments, you are setting the tone towards positivity while empowering your family to have active input towards its success. Make it fun. Have a theme. Take turns on who leads the meeting and rotate this among the kids and parents.
Couples, consider the benefits of a weekly Sunday coffee meeting where you can discuss the upcoming week, troubleshoot upcoming scheduling conflicts, or confirm who is dropping off the dry cleaning.
Family Operations Manual
Most well-run businesses have an operations manual, so why not your family?
Included in your manual could be everything from an emergency plan to important phone numbers to schedules to communication rules. You can keep notes from family meetings in this binder as well. Have your family do it together. Get everyone’s input on what should be included. Think of it as a blueprint or outline for best practices. It can include pet care, policies and procedures for when you are out of town, expectations for holiday gatherings, and who to call if there’s a flood or you need an electrician. It can be as simple or as detailed as you want it to be.
When you create this together, everyone will have ownership and will better be able to recognize the importance of their contributions. Keep it located in your Family Command Center.
It’s Okay To Restructure
If you’ve been doing the dishes every night for two years, and you’ve never really liked doing the dishes, and you’d prefer to do the laundry or the yard work or clean the bathrooms, rather than continuing to do the dishes, and possibly building up resentment, communicate you’d like a change. Switch things up. You can incorporate time during your family meetings to discuss changing roles. People outgrow tasks and assignments and forget to mention it to others.
Laundry
Do one load of laundry a day rather than waiting to do seven at one time. It’s an awful way to spend an entire day unless you totally love doing laundry.
Meal Plan ~ Meal Plan ~ Meal Plan
I would not have survived raising my boys without meal planning. Let’s be clear: My boys ate a lot, and frequently. And their friends seemed to be at our house eating a lot, and frequently. I made dinner at least four to five nights a week. One night a week we would do takeout, and one night a week would be leftovers or what we deemed “cupboard stew.” If you could find it in the cupboard, you could have it.
Implement meal planning habits and stick to it. Having the “What’s for dinner” question answered before anyone asks is priceless. Having a well-thought-out list before you go shopping will save you money and decrease stress. No one wants to be running to the store every other day. No one wants to be staring into a fridge at 5 pm or stopping on their way home trying to figure out what’s going to be on the menu. Not only is this taxing, it can add to not-so-great eating habits. Discuss meal options and invite suggestions during your family meetings.
Time Management
Home projects that never reach completion? Homework not completed in a timely fashion? Consistently late getting out the door? It’s time to implement actionable solutions.
Whether you want to paint the kitchen or clean out the garage, you need to create a plan and design a system to get you there. When you break the project down into steps, you can see and understand the progression and have a clear understanding of what you are to do next. Define the what or the why, and then you can create the how.
If schoolwork isn’t getting completed on time, try implementing techniques they are already doing in school. Having an analog clock can help visualize the actual passing of time, which can then aid in physically seeing time advance rather than always being “one time” which is what we see digitally.
It’s the parent’s job to set the parameters; it’s the child’s job to negotiate them. You need to allow choices. Would you rather begin your project at 9:07 or 9:17? (Yes, odd times are more effective suggestions.) Would you rather read in your room or in the backyard? The reading is nonnegotiable. Where they do it is.
We often don’t give ourselves enough time to complete a task or understand how much time it is really going to take to accomplish something. Visualizing time and understanding you only have so much of it, helps you strategize where it is going and how to make space for more of it. Time Mapping - which is similar to a journal entry - can help you see where you spend your time, how much of it you may or may not have available, and then better delegate what is important and where you need to give it.
One of the benefits of going to work at 4 am meant I was home by 2 pm. This allowed me to be present every day when my boys got home from school, which I will forever be grateful.
However, as organized as I tried to be, things didn’t always run smooth. We probably ate cupboard stew more often than I care to remember.
When they got older and came home for the summer from college, I had to frequently remind them that they were no longer living in a dorm, and, yes, they were still expected to unload the dishwasher and feed the dog.
I received a lot of eye rolls over the years. I was not always their favorite person. But I always tried to focus on my purpose. They were my purpose.
In the midst of daily demands and juggling life, I had to remember that I was also teaching them how to be good humans. It was my responsibility to make sure they could both survive and thrive in the world without me. To teach them that they are part of the whole. To guide them towards a greater understanding that it’s important to communicate and ask for help. To teach them the value of a well-laid plan and the peace of mind that comes when you have one.