Empowering the home through rituals and traditions

Every home has their own rituals and traditions. It’s a human thing. Some prefer to call them habits. No matter the name, every family has a set of them.

Rituals are the little routines that allow a task to be done easily. One such example, a coworker of mine shared that their home has a special routine they do nightly to put away their cellphones. Dad jingles his keys and opens up a special velvet box. Mom hums a tune as she powers down her phone and places it in the box. Dad does the same with his phone. The children then all power down their devices and put them in the box.

This ritual allows them to know it’s bedtime, digital communication is done, and sleep is very valuable. This coworker reports that quality of sleep, school performance, and comfort around each other has improves since the institution of this ritual. It’s now becoming a tradition that isn’t limited to school nights anymore. Others in the family tree are taking notes and joining in their own version of this.

A legacy is being born.

CEOs of the home will examine their rituals and traditions to make sure they empower the family forward. The grace element in this… good social practices (like saying “Thank You” and “Please”) are wrapped in the various rituals the family has. Change the rituals, you change the traditions, which changes the graciousness of the empowered home… leaving a positive legacy.

Championing success through empowered communications

Communication is not just words, it’s the delivery of said words. With the right delivery, we can uplift a spirit and empower a person to press on through their challenges. With the wrong set of words and wrong deliver, we can crush dreams, weaken resolve, and deny a bright future.

Just ask the child who spent most of his/her life hearing how dumb they are compared to the one who constantly heard how important it is to try and learn from every opportunity. The outcomes speaks volumes.

CEOs of the home know the importance of weighing their words carefully. But it’s not just their words, it’s their actions. Children will learn more from watching their parents than from listening to their parents.

All one has to do is look at eating preferences. No matter how much you tell a child not to eat ice cream, if all they see is their parents eating ice cream whenever their mood drops, that child will learn to eat ice cream whenever their mood drops. (This does ignore the fact that children can decide not to follow their parent’s footsteps and do differently)

Our words, actions, and intentions impacts our partners as well. We impact their resolve in more ways than we think we do. CEOs of the home are mindful and vigilant to leave their families empowered with each communicative moment.

The impact will radiate out beyond the walls of the home. A well empowered home is a beacon of home and inspiration for other homes throughout the community.

To improve a family tree, improve a family’s network

It’s quite easy, during the day to day of life, to see the home as one isolated unit. Each person within the home has their own personal network. These networks work together to influence and impact the home.

Now, picture the larger family tree. Each person has their own personal network. Each family has their own personal network.

It’s a network of networks.

Now, how much power is in that massive network?

Can you now picture why the phrase “your network is your net-worth” exists?

From sharing the load of childcare to job hunting tips, a family that is well connected has many options. Building better bonds across the various connections is the key. Of course, it goes without saying, one does not have to be best friends with everyone in the network. However, connections can be improved.

The conscientious CEOs of the home will work to bring solidarity within and around their home. They will work on improving rituals, traditions, and communication styles to help foster better connections within and around their home.

Change takes time. Change happens in waves and stages. The wise CEOs of the home will patiently navigate through the network to empower other CEOs of homes until the family tree is as strong as it needs to be.

Change the mindset of the leadership and you’ll have a shot at making the whole tree change. Just don’t discount the power of grass root level changes either. It is a team effort after all.

Bear in mind, just because you’re elevating your home does not reflect badly on those who don’t want to elevate. Just because they don’t want to elevate their home does not mean they have a bad home either.

When we speak of elevating the home, we’re talking about having better connections within the membership of the home, not having more stuff or better paying jobs. We’re talking about better acceptance, less judgmental-ism. We’re talking about more idea sharing and less silo-ism. By elevating, we mean being better humans who support, understand, and respect each other.

To improve any family, you definitely need to improve the connections within the family. The greatest gains comes from improving the quality of network outside the family, as they have influence on the family. Just think of the impact a good school makes or a good babysitter makes or a good job makes. Improve the outside connections and you’ll help accelerate the gains inside the home.

The network of networks is loaded with ripple effects.

A model of a resilient home

All of the empowerment and positive attitudes means very little if everything falls apart when adversity arrives. We can’t escape adversities and challenges. They’re part of life.

Having a strong bounce back game is essential. Resiliency can be learned and improved. There are models of resiliency that works for nearly every type of family. Pick one, or three, and have them on the ready.

Of course, it’s one thing to know them intellectually, it’s quite another to do emotionally. This is where CEOs of the home earn their keep. Preparing the family to face challenges by modeling gracious behaviors in smaller challenges.

It’s a mindset thing really.

How does one react when a child learns to walk? How does one react when a child learns to eat on their own? Should that be any different when a child falls off a chair? Or gets a bad grade?

Wait… one doesn’t cheer bad grades, right?

No. One does not cheer bad grades, but something does need cheering when the grades are bad… and it’s the process of learning. If a child put in hard work and still got a bad grade, you’ve got to cheer the process of the work.

Why?

You do not want that child to quit trying to get good grades. We all know as adults what it feels like to work super hard for a promotion and get passed up. If we give up on the process of going for the promotion, we will eventually place ourselves in a position not to get promoted. We have to stay upbeat and review the ‘failure’ and improve on the method so that the next time around, we get the promotion.

Same with the child. Cheer the process. Encourage the process. Elevate the nature of the process. Build up their grit and tenacity. That way they can learn the art of resiliency.

What applies to parenting also applies to the relationship. We have to learn resiliency in all aspects of life. A form of gracious resiliency. The ability to find good or value in all challenges.

All the hard work of placing rituals and traditions while modeling empowering communication to champion success comes together in the resiliency package of the home. The more resilient the home, the better it can stand when facing life, family, and stress.

Conclusions

Every family has value. Every family has their legacy. Each family can improve if they so desire. Each family can live more fully if they want.

This holiday season, cultivate the attitude of gratitude as you celebrate the blessings the year has afforded you. Not every family made it this far intact or in same completion as yours has. Loss is inevitable at one point or the other.

How the office of empowerment helps the family cope will have lasting impact. The good news is this, no matter what has happened in the past to bring you to your present, you’ve got a say in how today will shape your tomorrow.

Lift everyone up. Lift yourself up. Graciously move forward without leaving anyone in your home behind. Cheers to the holiday season and empowering the home in all seasons.

as promised, the links to the blog posts expanding the above presentation lives below on the last page