YOU’RE GOING TO BE “OFF TRACK” 90 PERCENT OF THE TIME. SO WHAT?
Good families—even great families—are off track 90 percent of the time! The key is that they have a sense of destination. They know what the “track” looks like. And they keep coming back to it time and time again.
It’s like the flight of an airplane. Before the plane takes off, the pilots have a flight plan. They know exactly where they’re going and start off in accordance with their plan. But during the course of the flight, wind, rain, turbulence, air traffic, human error, and other factors act upon that plane. They move it slightly in different directions so that most of the time that plane is not even on the prescribed flight path! Throughout the entire trip there are slight deviations from the flight plan. Weather systems or unusually heavy air traffic may even cause major deviations. But barring anything too major, the plane will arrive at its destination.
Now how does that happen? During the flight, the pilots receive constant feedback. They receive information from instruments that read the environment, from control towers, from other airplanes—even sometimes from the stars. And based on that feedback, they make adjustments so that time and time again, they keep returning to the flight plan.
The hope lies not in the deviations but in the vision, the plan, and the ability to get back on track.
The flight of that airplane is, I believe, the ideal metaphor for family life. With regard to our families, it doesn’t make any difference if we are off target or even if our family is a mess. The hope lies in the vision and in the plan and in the courage to keep coming back time and time again.
Sean (our son):
In general, I’d say that our family had as many fights as other families when we were growing up. We had our share of problems, too. But I am convinced that it was the ability to renew, to apologize, and to start again that made our family relationships strong.
On our family trips, for example, Dad would have all these plans for us to get up at 5:00 A.M., have breakfast, and get ready to be on the road by 8:00. The problem was that when the day arrived, we’d all be sleeping in and no one wanted to help. Dad would lose his temper. When we’d finally get off, about twelve hours after the time we were supposed to go, no one would even want to talk to Dad because he was so mad.
But what I remember the most is that Dad always apologized. Always. And it was a humbling thing to see him apologize for losing his temper—especially when you knew deep inside that you were one of the ones who had provoked him.
As I look back, I think what made the difference in our family was that both Mom and Dad would always keep coming back, keep trying—even when we were goofing off, even when it seemed that all their new plans and systems for family meetings and family goals and family chores were never going to work.
As you can see, our family is no exception. I’m no exception. I want to affirm at the very outset that whatever your situation—even if you are having many difficulties, problems, and setbacks—there is tremendous hope in moving toward your destination. The key is in having a destination, a flight plan, and a compass.
The key is in having a destination, a flight plan, and a compass.
This metaphor of the airplane will be used continuously throughout this book to communicate a sense of hope and excitement around the whole idea of building a beautiful family culture.
The Three Purposes of This Book
My desire in writing this book is to help you keep this sense of hope first and foremost in your mind and heart, and to help you develop these three things that will help you and your family stay on track: a destination, a flight plan, and a compass.
1. A clear vision of your destination. I realize that you come to this book with a unique family situation and unique needs. You may be struggling to keep your marriage together or to rebuild it. Or you may already have a good marriage but want a great one—one that is deeply satisfying and fulfilling. You may be a single parent and feel overwhelmed by the relentless crush of demands and pressures put upon you. You may be struggling with a wayward child or a rebellious teenager who is under the control of a gang or drugs or some other negative influence in society. You may be trying to blend two families together who “couldn’t care less.”
Perhaps you want your children to do their jobs and their homework cheerfully, without being reminded. Or you’re feeling challenged trying to fulfill combined (and apparently conflicting) roles in your family life, such as parent, judge, jury, jailer, and friend. Or you’re bouncing back and forth between strictness and permissiveness, not knowing how to discipline.
You may be struggling simply to make ends meet. You may be “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Your economic worries may almost overwhelm you and consume all your time and your emotions so that there is hardly anything left for relationships. You may have two or more jobs, and you and your loved ones just pass one another like ships in the night. The idea of a beautiful family culture may seem ever so remote.
It could be that the feeling and spirit in your family is contentious, that you have people quarreling, fighting, yelling, screaming, demanding, snarling, sniping, sneering, blaming, criticizing, walking out, slamming doors, ignoring, withdrawing, or whatever. It could be that some older kids won’t even come home, that there seems to be no natural affection left. It could be that the feeling in your marriage has died or is dying, or that you’re feeling empty and alone. Or it could be that you’re working your heart out to make everything nice, and nothing seems to improve. You’re exhausted, and you have a sense of futility and “what’s the use?”
Or you may be a grandparent who cares deeply but doesn’t know how to help without making things worse. Perhaps your relationship with a son or daughter-in-law has become soured, and there’s nothing but surface politeness and a deep cold war inside, which occasionally erupts into a hot one. It could be that you’ve been a victim of abuse for many years—in your upbringing or in your marriage—and you’re desirous and determined to stop that cycle, but you can’t seem to find any pattern or example to follow and keep falling back into the same tendencies and practices you abhor. Or it could be you’re a couple that wants desperately to have children but can’t, and you feel the sweetness in your marriage beginning to slip away.
You may even be experiencing a combination of many of these stresses, and you have no sense of hope at all. Whatever your situation, it is vitally important that you do not compare your family to any other family. No one will ever know the full reality of your situation, and until you feel that they do, their advice is worthless. Similarly, you will never know the full reality of another family or another person’s family situation. Our common tendency is to project our own situation onto others and try to prescribe what is right for them. But what we see on the surface is usually only the tip of the iceberg. Many people think that other families are just about perfect while theirs is falling apart. Yet every family has its challenges, its own bag of rocks.
The wonderful thing is that vision is greater than baggage. This means that a sense of what you can envision for the future—a better situation, a better state of being—is more powerful than whatever ugliness has accumulated in the past or whatever situation you are confronting in the present.
So I would like to share with you the way that families throughout the world have created a sense of shared vision and values through the development of a “family mission statement.” I’ll show you how you can develop such a statement and how it will unify and strengthen your family. A family mission statement can become your family’s unique “destination,” and the values it contains will represent your guidelines.
The vision of a better, more effective family will probably start with you. But to make it work well, others in the family must also feel involved. They must help to form it—or at least understand it and buy into it. And the reason is simple. Have you ever done a jigsaw puzzle or seen someone doing one? How important is it that you have the final scene in mind? How important is it that all who are working on it have the same final scene in mind? Without a sense of shared vision, people would be using different criteria to make their decisions, and the result would be total confusion.
Vision is greater than baggage.
The idea is to create a vision that is shared by everyone in the family. When your destination is clear, you can keep coming back to the flight plan time and time again. In fact, the journey is really part of the destination. They are inseparably connected. How you travel is as important as where you arrive.
2. A flight plan. It’s also vital that you have a flight plan based on the principles that will enable you to arrive at your destination. Let me share with you a story to illustrate.
I have a dear friend who once shared with me his deep concern over a son he described as being “rebellious,” “disturbing,” and “an ingrate.”
“Stephen, I don’t know what to do,” he said. “It’s gotten to the point where if I come into the room to watch television with my son, he turns it off and walks out. I’ve tried my best to reach him, but it’s just beyond me.”
At the time I was teaching some university classes around the 7 Habits. I said, “Why don’t you come with me to my class right now? We’re going to be talking about Habit 5—how to listen empathically to another person before you attempt to explain yourself. My guess is that your son may not feel understood.”
“I already understand him,” he replied. “And I can see problems he’s going to have if he doesn’t listen to me.”
“Let me suggest that you assume you know nothing about your son. Just start with a clean slate. Listen to him without any moral evaluation or judgment. Come to class and learn how to do this and how to listen within his frame of reference.”
So he came. Thinking he understood after just one class, he went to his son and said, “I need to listen to you. I probably don’t understand you, and I want to.”
His son replied, “You have never understood me—ever!” And with that, he walked out.
The following day my friend said, “Stephen, it didn’t work. I made such an effort, and this is how he treated me! I felt like saying, ‘You idiot! Don’t you realize what I’ve done and what I’m trying to do now?’ I really don’t know if there’s any hope.”
I said, “He’s testing your sincerity. And what did he find out? He found out you don’t really want to understand him. You want him to shape up.”
“He should, the little whippersnapper!” he replied. “He knows full well what he’s doing to mess things up.”
I replied, “Look at the spirit inside you now. You’re angry and frustrated and full of judgments. Do you think you can use some surface-level listening technique with your son and get him to open up? Do you think it’s possible for you to talk to him or even look at him without somehow communicating all those negative things you’re feeling deep inside? You’ve got to do much more private work inside your own mind and heart. You’ll eventually learn to love him unconditionally just the way he is rather than withholding your love until he shapes up. On the way, you’ll learn to listen within his frame of reference and, if necessary, apologize for your judgments and past mistakes or do whatever it takes.”
My friend caught the message. He could see that he had been trying to practice the technique at the surface but was not dealing with what would produce the power to practice it sincerely and consistently, regardless of the outcome.
So he returned to class for more learning and began to work on his feelings and motives. He soon started to sense a new attitude within himself. His feelings about his son turned more tender and sensitive and open.
He finally said, “I’m ready. I’m going to try it again.”
I said, “He’ll test your sincerity again.”
“It’s all right, Stephen,” he replied. “At this point I feel as if he could reject every overture I make, and it would be all right. I would just keep making them because it’s the right thing to do, and he’s worth it.”
That night he sat down with his son and said, “I know you feel as though I haven’t tried to understand you, but I want you to know that I am trying and will continue to try.”
Again, the boy coldly replied, “You have never understood me.” He stood up and started to walk out, but just as he reached the door, my friend said to his son, “Before you leave, I want to say that I’m really sorry for the way I embarrassed you in front of your friends the other night.”
His son whipped around and said, “You have no idea how much that embarrassed me!” His eyes began to fill with tears.
“Stephen,” he said to me later, “all the training and encouragement you gave me did not even begin to have the impact of that moment when I saw my son begin to tear up. I had no idea that he even cared, that he was that vulnerable. For the first time I really wanted to listen.”
And he did. The boy gradually began to open up. They talked until midnight, and when his wife came in and said, “It’s time for bed,” his son quickly replied, “We want to talk, don’t we, Dad?” They continued to talk into the early morning hours.
The next day in the hallway of my office building, my friend, with tears in his eyes, said, “Stephen, I found my son again.”
As my friend discovered, there are certain fundamental principles that govern in all human interactions, and living in harmony with those principles or natural laws is absolutely essential for quality family life. In this situation, for example, the principle my friend had been violating was the basic principle of respect. The son also violated it. But this father’s choice to live in harmony with that principle—to try to genuinely and empathically listen to and understand his son—dramatically changed the entire situation. You change one element in any chemical formula and everything changes.
Exercising the principle of respect and being able to genuinely and empathically listen to another human being are among the habits of highly effective people in any walk of life. Can you imagine a truly effective individual who would not respect and honor others or who would not deeply listen and understand? Incidentally, that is how you can tell if you have found a principle that is truly universal (meaning that it applies everywhere), timeless (meaning that it applies at any time), and self-evident (meaning that arguing against it is patently foolish, such as arguing that you could build a strong long-term relationship without respect). Just imagine the absurdity of trying to live its opposite.
The 7 Habits are based on universal, timeless, and self-evident principles that are just as true in the world of human relations as the law of gravity is in the physical world. These principles ultimately govern in all of life. They have been part of successful individuals, families, organizations, and civilizations throughout time. These habits are not tricks or techniques. They’re not quick fixes. They’re not a bunch of practices or “to do” lists. They are habits—established patterns of thinking and doing things—that all successful families have in common.
There are certain fundamental principles that govern in all human interactions, and living in harmony with those principles or natural laws is absolutely essential for quality family life.
The violation of these principles virtually guarantees failure in family or other interdependent situations. As Leo Tolstoy observed in his epic novel Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”1 Whether we’re talking about a two-parent or a single-parent family, whether there are ten children or none, whether there has been a history of neglect and abuse or a legacy of love and faith, the fact is that happy families have certain constant characteristics. And these characteristics are contained in the 7 Habits.
One of the other significant principles my friend learned in this situation concerns the very nature of change itself—the reality that all true and lasting change occurs from the inside out. In other words, instead of trying to change the situation or his son, he went to work on himself. And it was his own deep interior work that eventually created change in the circumstance and in his son.
This inside-out approach is at the very heart of the 7 Habits. By consistently applying the principles contained in these habits, you can bring about positive changes in any relationship or situation. You can become an agent of change. In addition, focusing on principles will have a far greater effect on behavior than focusing on behavior alone. This is because these principles are already intuitively known or deeply embodied in people, and seeking to understand them will help people understand more of their own true nature and possibilities, and unleash their potential.
One of the reasons this inside-out approach is so vital today is that times have changed dramatically. In the past, it was easier to successfully raise a family “out-side-in,” because society was an ally, a resource. People were surrounded by role models, examples, media reinforcement, and family-friendly laws and support systems that sustained marriage and helped create strong families. Even when there were problems within the family, there was still this powerful reinforcement of the whole idea of successful marriage and family life. Because of this you could essentially raise your family “outside-in.” Success was much more a matter of “going with the flow.”
But the jet stream has changed—dramatically. And to “go with the flow” today is family-fatal!
Even though we can be encouraged by efforts to return to “family values,” the reality is that the trends in the wider society over the last thirty to fifty years have basically shifted from pro-family to anti-family. We’re trying to navigate through what has become a turbulent, family-unfriendly environment, and there are powerful headwinds that easily throw many families off track.
The jet stream has changed—dramatically. And to “go with the flow” today is family-fatal!
At a recent conference on families, one state governor shared this sobering experience:
I had a conversation recently with a man whom I consider a very good father. He told me this story:
His seven-year-old son recently seemed to have some things on his mind. He said, “Dad, I just can’t quit thinking about it.” And this father assumed that it was a nightmare or some kind of scary movie he had seen.
But after a lot of persuasion and some coaxing, he told of horrible, ugly hard-core pornography that he’d been exposed to. The father said, “Where did this come from?” The boy gave him the name of a nine-year-old neighbor, a trusted neighbor. He had seen it on the computer. “How many times did you see it?” the father asked. “Lots of times” was the reply.
Well, the father went to the parents of the nine-year-old. They were shocked. They were dismayed. They were sickened to think that the minds of these two little boys had been polluted at their tender age. The parents of the nine-year-old confronted him. He collapsed in tears. He said, “I know it’s wrong, but I just keep looking at it.”
They were concerned, of course, that there might be an adult involved. But no. It was introduced to the nine-year-old by a sixth grader who gave him the Internet address at school and said, “Look at this. It’s really cool.” And it spread around that neighborhood like a plague.
The father told me that they had encouraged their children, as they felt they should, to learn to use the computer. And the nine-year-old was good at it. But they kept the computer downstairs, behind a closed door. Unwittingly, they had turned that room into a porn shop.2
How could this happen? How could it be that we live in a society where technology makes it possible for children—who have no wisdom or experience or judgment on these matters—to become victims of such sick, deeply addictive mental poisoning as pornography?
Over the past thirty years the situation for families has changed powerfully and dramatically. Consider the following:
• Illegitimate birth rates have increased more than 400 percent.3
• The percentage of families headed by a single parent has more than tripled.4
• The divorce rate has more than doubled.5 Many project that about half of all new marriages will end in divorce.
• Teenage suicide has increased almost 300 percent.6
• Scholastic Aptitude Test scores among all students have dropped 73 points.7
• The number one health problem for American women today is domestic violence. Four million women are beaten each year by their partners.8
• One-fourth of all adolescents contract a sexually transmitted disease before they graduate from high school.9
Since 1940 the top disciplinary problems in public school have changed from chewing gum and running in the halls to teen pregnancy, rape, and assault.10
In the midst of all this, the percentage of families with one parent at home with the children during the day has dropped from 66.7 to 16.9 percent.11 And the average child spends seven hours a day watching television—and five minutes a day with Dad!12
The great historian Arnold Toynbee taught that we can summarize all of history in one simple idea: Nothing fails like success. In other words, when the response is equal to the challenge, that is success; but when the challenge changes, the old response no longer works.
The challenge has changed, so we must develop a response that is equal to the challenge. The desire to create a strong family is not enough. Even good ideas are not enough. We need a new mind-set and a new skill-set. The challenge has taken a quantum leap, and if we are to respond effectively, so must we.
Why mission statements? Why special family times? Why one-on-one bonding experiences? Because without new basic patterns or structures in place, families will be blown off course.
The 7 Habits framework represents such a mind-set and skill-set. Throughout this book I will show you how—even in the midst of the turbulent environment—many families are using the principles in the 7 Habits framework to get and stay on track.
Specifically, I’m going to encourage you to set aside a special “family time” each week that, barring emergencies or unexpected interruptions, you hold inviolate. This family time will be a time for planning, communicating, teaching values, and having fun together. It will be a powerful factor in helping you and your family stay on course. I’m also going to suggest that you have regular one-on-one bonding times with each member of your family—times when the agenda is usually written by the other person. If you do these two things, I can almost guarantee that the quality of your family life will improve dramatically.
But why mission statements? Why special family times? Why one-on-one bonding experiences? Simply because the world has changed in profound ways, and the speed of change itself is changing, is increasing. Without new basic patterns or structures in place, families will be blown off course.
As Alfred North Whitehead once said, “The habit of the active utilization of well-understood principles is the final possession of wisdom.”13 You don’t have to learn a hundred new practices. You don’t have to be constantly searching for newer, better techniques. All you need is a basic framework of fundamental principles that you can apply in any situation.
The 7 Habits create such a framework. The greatest power of the 7 Habits does not lie in the individual habits but in all the habits together and in the relationship between them. With this framework you can diagnose or figure out just about anything that happens in any conceivable family situation. And you can sense what the first steps are in fixing it or improving it. Millions of people who got into the original 7 Habits material can so testify. It’s not that the habits tell you what to do but that they give you a way of thinking and of being so that you will come to know what to do—and when to do it. How to do it will take skill, and that involves practice.
As one family said, “We’ve sometimes found it hard to live these principles. But it’s much, much harder not to!” Every action has a consequence, and actions that are not based on principles will have unhappy consequences.
So my second purpose in writing this book is to show you how, regardless of your situation, the 7 Habits framework can be an enormously useful tool in helping you diagnose your situation and create positive change from the inside out.
3. A compass. The 7 Habits framework deeply affirms that you are the creative force of your own life and that through your example and leadership you can become a creative force—an agent of change—in your family life. So the third purpose of this book is to help you recognize and develop four unique gifts you have that will enable you to become an agent of change in your family. These gifts become a compass or an inner guidance system that will help your family stay on course as you move toward your destination. They enable you to recognize and align your life with universal principles—even in the midst of turbulent social weather—and they empower you to determine and take whatever action is most appropriate and effective in your situation.
And wouldn’t you agree that any contribution this book makes to you and your family would be far greater if it left you independent of me or any other author, counselor, or so-called advice giver and empowered you to figure out things for yourself and call upon other resources as you felt appropriate?
Far more than techniques and practices that may have worked in other situations, you need an approach that will enable you, even empower you, to apply principles in your situation.
Again, no one knows your family situation as you do. You are the one in the cockpit. You are the one who has to deal with the turbulence, the weather, the forces that would blow you and your family off track. You are the one who is equipped to understand what needs to happen in your family and to make it happen.
Far more than techniques and practices that may have worked in other situations, you need an approach that will enable you, even empower you, to apply principles in your situation.
There’s an expression in the Far East: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for the day; teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” This book is not about giving you a fish. Even though there are scores of illustrations and examples from all kinds of people in all kinds of settings showing how they applied the 7 Habits in their circumstances, the focus of this book is on teaching you how to fish. This will be done by sharing a sequenced set of principles that will help you develop your own capacity to optimize your unique situation. So look beyond the stories. Look for the principles. The stories may not apply to your situation, but I can absolutely guarantee that the principles and the framework will.
The End in Mind: A Beautiful Family Culture
Now this book is about the 7 Habits of highly effective families. So what is “effectiveness” in the family? I suggest it can be captured in four words: a beautiful family culture.
When I say culture, I’m talking about the spirit of the family—the feeling, the “vibes,” the chemistry, the climate or atmosphere in the home. It’s the character of the family—the depth, quality, and maturity of the relationships. It’s the way family members relate to one another and how they feel about one another. It’s the spirit or feeling that grows out of the collective patterns of behavior that characterize family interaction. And these things, like the tip of an iceberg, come out of the unseen mass of shared beliefs and values underneath.
Family itself is a “we” experience, a “we” mentality.
When I talk about a beautiful family culture, I realize that the word “beautiful” may mean different things to different people. But I’m using it to describe a nurturing culture where family members deeply, sincerely, and genuinely enjoy being together, where they have a sense of shared beliefs and values, where they act and interact in ways that really work, based on the principles that govern in all of life. I’m talking about a culture that has moved from “me” to “we.”*
Family itself is a “we” experience, a “we” mentality. And admittedly, the movement from “me” to “we”—from independence to interdependence—is perhaps one of the most challenging and difficult aspects of family life. But like the “road less traveled” spoken of in the Robert Frost poem,14 it’s the road that makes all the difference. Despite the priority that American culture clearly places on individual freedom, immediate gratification, efficiency, and control, there is literally no road laden with as much joy and satisfaction as the road of rich, interdependent family living.
When your happiness comes primarily from the happiness of others, you know you have moved from “me” to “we.” And the whole problem-solving and opportunity-seizing process changes. But until family is really a priority, this movement does not usually take place. Marriage often becomes nothing more than two married singles living together, because the movement from independence to interdependence never happened.
A beautiful family culture is a “we” culture. It reflects that movement. It’s the kind of culture that enables you to work together to select and move toward a “together” destination and to contribute, to make a difference—in society generally and perhaps to other families in particular. It also enables you to deal with the powerful forces that would throw you off track—including turbulent weather outside the plane (the culture we live in and things such as economic dislocation or sudden illness over which you have no control) and turbulent social weather inside the cockpit (contention, lack of communication, and the tendency to criticize, complain, compare, and compete).
Involve Your Family Now
Before you actually move into the 7 Habits, I’d like to acknowledge that the response to the original 7 Habits book and the expressed desire to apply this material to the family has been overwhelming. Based on that response, I have included a few of the family stories which “really worked” that were in the original 7 Habits book.
But most of the stories are new—many, in fact, have been shared by people who are working to apply these principles in their own families.* I suggest that you read the stories with the idea of drawing from them the fundamental principles involved as well as ideas for possible applications—even new and different applications—in your own family.
I would also like to suggest that, if at all possible, you take immediate steps to involve your family right from the beginning. I can guarantee you that the learning will be deeper, the bonding stronger, and the insight and joy greater if you can discover and share together. Also, by doing it together, you won’t find yourself ahead of a spouse or your teenage children who might feel threatened by your new knowledge or your desire to create change. I’m aware of many individuals who got into self-help books on family and began to judge their spouse—so severely that a year later they found themselves “justifiably” divorced.
Keep in mind that when you’re working with your family, “slow” is “fast” and “fast” is “slow.”
Learning together will be a powerful force in helping you build a “we” culture. So if at all possible, read the book together—perhaps even out loud to each other. Discuss the stories together. Talk about the ideas together as you go along. You might want to begin by simply sharing some of the stories at the dinner table. Or you may want to become more deeply involved in discussion and application. I’ve included some first-step suggestions at the end of each chapter on ways to teach and involve your family—and even study groups—in the material presented in that chapter. You may also want to refer to the 7 Habits diagram and definitions here. Be patient. Go slowly. Respect the level of understanding of each person. Don’t bulldoze through the material. Keep in mind that when you’re working with your family, “slow” is “fast” and “fast” is “slow.”
But again, I acknowledge that you are the expert on your family. Your situation may be such that you don’t want to involve anyone else at this time. You may be dealing with sensitive issues that make doing this together unwise. Or you may simply want to see if this material makes sense to you and then involve others later. Or you may just want to begin with your spouse and some older teenage children.
That’s fine. You know your situation best. All I’m saying is that after years of experience in working with the 7 Habits in many different settings, I have learned that when people go through it together—when they read it together, discuss it together, talk back and forth, and get the new insights and learnings and understandings together—it starts a bonding process that becomes truly exciting. The spirit is one of being equally yoked together: “I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. We’re learning and growing together.” When you share in humility what you are learning, with no intent to “shape up” someone else, it unfreezes the labels or judgments others have of you and makes it “safe,” permissible, and legitimate for you to continue to grow and change.
“Never, never, NEVER give up!”
I would also say this: Do not get discouraged if your initial efforts meet with resistance. Keep in mind that any time you try something new, you’re going to get some flack:
“So what’s wrong with us?”
“Why all the big deal about changing?”
“Why can’t we just be like a normal family?
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat first.”
“I’ve got ten minutes and that’s it. I’m out of here.”
“Can I bring a friend?”
“I’d rather watch TV.”
Just smile and keep moving forward. I promise you: It will be worth the effort!
The Miracle of the Chinese Bamboo Tree
Finally, I’d like to suggest that in everything you do in your family, you keep in mind the miracle of the Chinese bamboo tree. After the seed for this amazing tree is planted, you see nothing, absolutely nothing, for four years except for a tiny shoot coming out of a bulb. During those four years, all the growth is underground in a massive, fibrous root structure that spreads deep and wide in the earth. But then in the fifth year the Chinese bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet!
Many things in family life are like the Chinese bamboo tree. You work and you invest time and effort, and you do everything you can possibly do to nurture growth, and sometimes you don’t see anything for weeks, months, or even years. But if you’re patient and keep working and nurturing, that “fifth year” will come, and you will be astonished at the growth and change you see taking place.
Patience is faith in action. Patience is emotional diligence. It’s the willingness to suffer inside so that others can grow. It reveals love. It gives birth to understanding. Even as we become aware of our suffering in love, we learn about ourselves and our own weaknesses and motives.
So, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, we must “never, never, NEVER give up!”
I know of one little girl who would always run out to the front porch. Her mother would go out, hug her, and invite her back. One day the little girl did this, and because her mother was busy, she forgot to go and get her. After a while the little girl went back into the house. Her mother hugged her and told her she was glad she was back. Then the little girl said, “Momma, always come after me.”
Inside each of us is this deep longing for “home,” for the rich, satisfying relationships and interactions of quality family life. And we must never give up. No matter how far we feel we’ve gotten off track, we can always take steps to correct the course. I strongly encourage you: No matter how far away a son or daughter seems to be, hang in there. Never give up. Your children are bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, whether physically by birth or emotionally by the bonding of the family commitment you have made. Eventually, like the Prodigal son, they will return. You will reclaim them.
As the metaphor of the airplane reminds us, the destination is within reach. And the journey can be rich, enriching, and joyful. In fact, the journey is really part of the destination, because in the family, as in life, how you travel is as important as where you arrive.
As Shakespeare has written:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.15
We must take this tide now, for despite the trends in society we all know deep inside that family is supremely important. In fact, when I ask audiences worldwide what the three most important things in their lives are, 95 percent put “family” or “family relationships” on that list. Seventy-five percent put family first.
I feel the same way, and I imagine you do, too. Our greatest joys and our deepest heartaches surround what is happening in our family life. It is said that “no mother is happier than her most unhappy child.” We want things to be right. We want to have the joy we somehow know deep inside is possible and natural and right in family life. But when we sense a gap between this vision of the rich, beautiful family life we want to have and the reality of our everyday family lives, we feel off track. It’s easy to get discouraged, to feel a little hopeless—to feel that there is no way we can ever have the kind of family life we really want.
But there is hope, tremendous hope! The key is to remember to keep working from the inside out and keep getting back on track when we blow it.
I wish you well. I realize that your family is different from ours. Through divorce or the death of your spouse, you may be attempting to raise children alone. You may be a grandparent with all your children grown. You may be recently married and not have children yet. You may be an aunt or an uncle or a brother or a sister or a cousin. But whoever you are, you’re part of a family, and family love is in a league of its own. When family relationships are good, life itself is good. It is my hope and belief that these 7 Habits will help you create a beautiful family culture in which life is really good.
SHARING THIS CHAPTER WITH ADULTS AND TEENS
Family Life Is Like an Airplane Flight
• Review the airplane illustration here. Ask family members: In what ways do you think family life is like an airplane flight?
• Ask: When do you feel our family is “off course?” Responses might include: during times of stress; in times of conflict when there’s fighting, yelling, blaming, and criticizing; during painful times of loneliness and insecurity.
• Ask: When do you feel our family is “on course?” Responses might include: when we’re taking walks, talking together, relaxing, going to the park, taking trips together, or having special dinners, “work” parties, family picnics, or barbecues.
• Encourage family members to think of a time when they knew they were off course. Ask: What caused it? What other things can you think of that impact you in negative ways?
• Review the story “I Found My Son Again” here. Ask family members: How do we get back on track? Some ideas might include: having one-on-one time, asking for and getting feedback, listening, forgiving, apologizing, putting pride aside, becoming humble, taking responsibility, examining your thinking, connecting with what’s important, respecting one another, considering consequences.
• Review Sean’s recollections, “Mom and Dad would always keep coming back,” here. Discuss how family members can correct their course more effectively.
Learning Together
• Ask family members: How do we learn and share together as a family? Responses might include: reading stories together, sharing music, taking trips, enjoying new experiences together, gathering family photos, sharing family stories. Ask: How important is this to our family?
• Discuss how you can make reading and discussing this book together a commitment.
It’s Never Too Late
• Consider the miracle of the Chinese bamboo tree as described here. Review the story “Momma, always come after me” here. Ask family members: How does this impact the way we think about our family and the struggles we face? Are there any specific areas or relationships in which we need to allow time for growth?
SHARING THIS CHAPTER WITH CHILDREN
Play the Game
• Blindfold a family member. Lead him or her to a place in the house, the yard or a nearby park, where returning to the starting point without sight will be a little difficult. Make sure the return path is safe, with no stairs or other obstacles in the way.
• Turn the person around a few times and explain that it will be his or her job to find the way back to the designated starting point.
• Let the person try to return. After a moment ask if he or she would like some help or clues.
• Let family members direct the person back with instructions such as “turn left, go straight, turn right.”
• When safely back, ask the person if it was hard to find the way when he or she couldn’t see it and had no instructions. Give each child a chance to be blindfolded and try to find the way back.
Summarize the Game
• Help the children understand that you are all going through life together, but none of you can see the future. Often you will need instructions or clues and some assistance from your family to get to your destination.
• Talk about how wonderful it is to have a family to rely on.
• Help the children see that a family “flight plan” with some “help” to become a strong and happy family is just as valuable as the help and assistance they received when they were blindfolded and tried to find their way back to the designated starting point.
Action
• Decide to meet weekly as a family and talk about your family flight plan. Discuss what you can do to help one another, support one other, have fun together, and stay close all your lives.
• During the week, post little reminders here and there about the next family meeting.
• Plan fun bonding activities such as a visit to family member not living in your home, a trip to the ice cream store, a sports day, or sharing a great lesson or story that clearly shows how much you value the family and how committed you are as a parent to making it a priority.