Being Kind

Sometimes I surprise myself... how can I have blogged so many times and not mentioned Stephen Covey even once yet!  While living in Northern B.C. my husband and I took a weekend workshop on Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families.  In many ways this weekend/book transformed our family life.

Something about the workshop allowed us to take risks. For one, the facilitator is an amazing man who I love (no, not Stephen himself!) and secondly, it forced us to participate in the seemingly hokey activities which we probably would not have bothered doing reading the book independently.

The most transformative activity for me was writing our Family Mission Statement. I so love the one we wrote - our older kids were preschoolers at the time and it includes their language.  It is framed in our living room, and while many will never notice it, it holds a prominent place in our heart and life.

Over the years we have re-visited the book many times. Both my husband and I read it regularly. I'm fortunate that one of my best friends reads it too - we have a common language when we discuss our families and hold each other accountable to commitments we know are in the book.  It is the basis for the kids' personal planning studies this year.

One of the activities we have maintained for many years is under the heading Being Kind; "Little kindnesses go a long way toward building relationships of trust and unconditional love. Just think about the impact in your own family of using words or phrases such as thank you, please, excuse me, you go first, and may I help you.  Or performing unexpected acts of service such as helping with the dishes, taking children shopping for something that's important to them, or phoning to see if there's anything you can pick up at the store on the way home...not just at times of special achievement or on occasions such as birthdays but on ordinary days, and just because your spouse or children  are who they are."  (Covey, 1997, p.51) 

We look for ways to share our gratitude for the small things family members do for each other. For a long time we kept a jar and would write notes to each other during the week to share on family night. Recently I was inspired by a post of a favorite blog Amongst Lovely Things and created a simple dry-erase system to write thank yous to each other on the fridge.

The whole project cost me $6 at the Dollar Store and about 10 minutes to make (including the time it took to route through my paper in the storage room, and the dry erase markers at 3 for $1!)

They are simply small fridge-magnet picture frames. I put a square of scrap-booking paper in one for each family member and we write on the plastic frame.

Of course kids and dry-erase markers go together like PB & Jelly. We're all so excited to use them that we're hard-pressed to read a note of gratitude from someone before it has been erased and replaced by another eager pen-holder. Well, in the big scheme of things I think this is a happy dilemma.

Joyfully appreciative,
Caz.