Your Strong Family

I have a precious little family – a wonderful wife I’ve known for 20+ years (we met in college!) and two precocious little girls. My four-year-old is exceedingly wise for her young age. Remarkably, she is already laser focused on the “whys” of how our family operates. Little Sophie asks wonderfully-awkward questions such as:

• “Why was daddy yelling at that guy on the phone? He doesn’t know him. [oops!]
• “How come mommy doesn’t have to put her shoes away but I have to? [good question, I say!]
• “Why is that kid at the park being mean to me when his mommy is right there watching? You wouldn’t let me get away with that? [come on mom who is texting at the park instead of watching her kid!]
• “Why do I have to share my brand-new Elsa magic wand when my baby sister has all those stuffed animals? She gets mad when I play with her toys. [Lord, have mercy!]

These questions always make me do a double-take. “Say that again, please.” I ask just in case the question wasn’t as insightful as it seemed. But, of course, her questions are as probing and morally insightful as I suspected because Sophie “Einstein” Ciocchetti is driving the conversation.

Be Careful . . . It’s A Trap . . .

These questions, though insightful in nature, are super-simple to answer off the cuff. And so, we generally provide elementary answers like:

“Daddy was frustrated because the TV isn’t working again. But he is just tired of being on the phone all afternoon. Go play upstairs until he’s done.” To the other questions, we generally respond with some basic truth like, “Sharing – even our really special stuff – is important in life” or “maybe that kid at the park is having a bad day.”

Therein lies the trap. Sophie really wants to know why we are acting this way. We are her parents, her role models. She is using our responses to form her future justifications for the way she will act in similar situations.

Our simple answers are morally acceptable for sure and perhaps Sophie might learn something about her character from them. But there is a much better, much more impactful way to respond – especially when trying to create a strong family culture.

Adopt A Family Mission Statement

My wife and I both think very deeply about what it means to raise really good kids in the character sense. Perhaps we spend so much time on this because of my job as an ethics professor or perhaps it’s because we are old parents with years of experience screwing life up. Regardless, we want to do this part of parenting in the most effective manner possible. We want something we didn’t really have growing up – a strong family culture. We want to be Ciocchettis infused with character. But how?

The best way I have found to create a strong family culture is to have a common mission. It’s critical to focus everyone’s minds on what the family is now and what we aspire for it to look like in the future. So why not create a family mission statement! Write it down, show it off, and follow it as often as possible.

If you go down this path (and you should immediately), here are some ground rules:

1. Make it short;
2. Make it memorable; and
3. Make it meaningful.

We are TEAM C

We thought about our mission for a long time. We wanted to make sure we hit the rules above and created a strong foundation for what we want to teach our girls. We came up with Team Ciocchetti and then shortened it to Team C. Isn’t it good! It’s short, memorable, and meaningful.

Being the goofball (I mean family-focused) man that I am. I had light up letters of TEAM C made on Etsy. You’ll see in the picture above that these letters are in our launching pad right by the door we exit from 90% of the time. Much to my wife’s dismay, I added electrical outlets behind each one with minimal drywall repair. I also programmed them to turn on every morning at 6:00am and off every evening at 10:00pm. And now, you can’t miss them! Which means that, every time anyone leaves, they are reminded of who we are as a family and that that they represent our team to the outside world. Me too. I teach young people for a living and I need that reminder as I head down to the schoolhouse. To me, this sign is a beautiful thing. And, it’s grown on my wife. Not enough to add more of them around the house, mind you. But, this one has been blessed.

There is one more thing I feel compelled to add. In addition to the lights, I even went as far as to create a Ciocchetti family crest. I’m a nerd, never forget that. I separated the Team C concept into four core values: Faith, Family, Friends, and Meaningful (“Good” in the character sense) Work. Then, I mocked it up in Adobe Illustrator. No one will mistake this for a work of art to be sure. But, these four things are what we want to chase in our lives. This is where we should focus on energy and attention.

How We Use Team C to Communicate

Jillian and I can use the Team C concept to communicate our values and create a strong family culture all day long. Here are just a few of the attributes of highly functioning teams that we can easily translate to our family environment. Effective teams:

1. Have a sense of purpose & share common values
2. Trust one another with really important things (even more important than the Elsa magic wand)
3. Share roles (everyone does the dishes or picks up) and credit
4. Recognize individual strengths (such as Sophie’s mind or my wife’s patience)
5. Look out and care for one another even when their own lives are busy / tough
6. Follow the team rules and procedures
7. Carry part of the burdens that come with living together
8. Manage conflict and use constructive criticism because no team (family) is perfect
9. Talk about critical issues in a supportive manner and seek high team morale
10. Practice continual improvement

The list can go on and on. That’s what’s great about the team concept. It can evolve as our family changes – it already has. The best part is that it’s easy for me to think about how to act and react. I’ve been on teams my whole life – we all have whether it’s sports, or work or a family! That means that comes naturally for me to ask myself what an effective team member would do and then try and act like that at home – as a member of Team C. Would I do that as often without all the time and emphasis I have put on our mission statement? Probably not.

With all this in mind. here are some better answers to Sophie’s insightful questions using the team analogy:

• ” Honey, I’m sorry I yelled at the Comcast guy. I am impatient most of the time and that’s a problem. My impatient attitude sometimes adds tension to the family. Teams function best without that kid of unnecessary added tension. So, daddy needs to practice his patience a lot more. Will you help me?
• “Honey, mommy is really tired from taking care of all of us. So, that’s why she leaves her shoes out on the floor sometimes. It’s frustrating that you have to put yours away and she doesn’t but, what should we do for a critical member of the team who’s exhausted? Perhaps, put her shoes away for her and say nothing about it. Let’s go do that.
• “Sweetheart, that one mommy at the park is on her phone and not watching her son. That’s true. But we don’t know why. Maybe the babysitter is cancelling on her, maybe she just got some bad news, or maybe someone in her family is sick. They live in the neighborhood because we’ve seen them before. They are part of the bigger team – our neighborhood. So, let’s show some grace (i.e., sportsmanship) and just let it slide this time.”
• “Sweetheart, on the Elsa magic wand thing . . . we need to trust each other with our stuff because we’re all on the same team here. It’s Team C, remember. Let’s teach little Sydney how to play with it the right way instead of ripping it out of her hands because you’re scared she’ll break it. That’s what you’d want her to do if she was older and had cooler stuff, right?

I’m not saying that I always answer this way. It’s just that I should. And, I now have a framework within with to craft these beautiful answers. The hope is that my little ones see us consistently talking and acting like an effective team. Then, they might want that as well and perhaps pass it on to their kids. Team C has been a blessing in my life and has helped us build a stronger family. I’m sure of it.

Now It’s Your Turn

In the end, you don’t have to be too nerdy about this. The family crest and lighted signs aren’t necessary (just really cool). All that is required is that you think as a group about what your family stands for now and what you want to stand for in the future. Then, sit down over a meal and craft a statement that encompasses those goals in a short, memorable, and meaningful way. Let’s be clear . . . strong families seeking solid character and then plugging into their communities are a major part of the solution to what ails America. Families are the cornerstone of our society and rightfully so. I encourage you to join my little family and craft your family’s mission statement today! You won’t regret it.

• Check out COREYSPEAKS.COM for more on popular keynote speaker Corey Ciocchetti. Corey has keynotes on happiness, integrity, ethical leadership, ethical decision-making, morale, stress reduction, and professionalism. Corey has spoken in 44 states and over 250 cities since 2007.
  
• Check out Corey’s other cool ethics blog posts on LEADERSHIP and HAPPINESS  – you won’t regret it.
• Corey’s new book, INSPIRE INTEGRITY: CHASE AN AUTHENTIC LIFE is available now!