What would you change about your family

I’m not a fan of the Simpsons but I had to chuckle when I heard an ad for the show. Homer said, “Why do things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?”

Very few of us would ever seriously ask that same question but how about if we tweaked it slightly, “Why do things that take place in stupid families keep on happening in mine?”

Isn’t that kind of what we’re asking when we get frustrated and throw out questions like, “Why must everything be a fight?” “Can’t anyone clean up after themselves?” “Would it hurt anyone to help out a bit for a change?” “For once, could you please just get along?”

One day many years ago, a friend and fellow worker very politely pointed out that I had a bad habit of interrupting him pretty much whenever he spoke. I admitted I had the problem, apologized and told him that I was going to do something about it. In the days that followed, he politely reminded me time and time again. I responded the same way each time.

A week or two later my friend reached the end of his patience and said, “Every time I talk about this, you say that you’re going to do something about it. Stop putting it off! Make a decision to change and do something about it now.”

I stopped and prayed on the spot for God’s help and I made a decision. Once the decision was made, I began paying attention and I put some effort into learning the skills I needed like really listening and following up with a question.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I stopped interrupting however the biggest benefit of my friend’s rebuke was that I later learned how to apply the change principle in my family. Let me give you a brief example.

Once our family was suffering from chronic tornado kitchen syndrome. At first I whined, I complained and I asked the ‘Homer Simpson’ style questions.

My wonderful wife pointed out that perhaps we needed to do something different if we wanted change. (Where had I heard that before?) After some prayer and thought, I taped a note to the kitchen counter and had a family meeting and the fun began. If a single thing was out of place after someone left the kitchen they were on kitchen duty until the next time someone was caught. For awhile everyone was catching everyone else and kitchen duty revolved frequently. Within a few weeks everyone was getting the hang of ‘the game’ and those caught were spending longer periods of time on kitchen duty which made it even more important not to mess up.

What needs to change in your family? Is it the way you communicate with each other, are the kids not helping out, is the sibling rivalry fierce, are you constantly cleaning up after everyone? Here’s what you do, pick one thing that you want to change, pray about it and ask for wisdom. Now go looking for wisdom, search this site or other Christian parenting sites, Google the problem, read a parenting book, anything you need to do to find an idea or solution.

Proverbs 9 says that wisdom has prepared a huge banquet and she’s yelling, “Come and get it.” Finding the wisdom is very seldom difficult once you’ve decided on change. Now have a family meeting and get started.

What I found out was that small efforts at change can yield big results. A simple fun game in the kitchen led to everyone learning skills that began to spread to the rest of the house. My simple decision to stop interrupting people led me to better communication skills and therefore to better and stronger relationships.

The things that happen to stupid people happen to Homer Simpson and us not because we’re stupid but because we keep doing the same things over and over again and that’s stupid. And if we expect any change without changing, according to Einstein, that’s insane. Start today and fight stupidity and insanity with a little change.

For more quick and easy parenting tips for bringing change to your family, we recommend “Parenting at the Speed of Life”

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)

Don’t air the family’s dirty laundry

Do you remember your parents telling you to not air your family’s dirty laundry? It’s a metaphor which apparently can be traced back to Napolean. The idea being that you shouldn’t do laundry in public (eg hang clothes on a line to dry) that would reveal intimate details of your life and you also shouldn’t tell others about the troubles and private things that happen in your family.

I remember hearing this saying when I was young and my Granny was still alive. I remember wondering why (if this saying were true as a fact as well as a metaphor) she would hang her unmentionables on our clothes line when she visited. Now I should mention that my Gran was a wonderful lady but she was a very large woman and her private garments would attract attention. However, for some reason she seemed oblivious to this fact.

I’m telling this story because I believe that somehow, somewhere along the way, we’ve adopted the idea that what happens behind closed family doors is no one’s business but our own. Which has again somehow led to the idea that we are free to behave in ways in our homes that we would not act in public.

Although I’ve seen this in many Christian homes, it is not God’s idea of how a Christian home should function. Being a Christian is about who we are and who we’re becoming, it’s not just about what we believe. As we submit our lives to God, he by his grace and the work of the Holy Spirit begins (and never stops) to change our hearts and that change should be reflected in our behavior. The first place that our changed behavior should show up is in our closest relationships – in our family relationships.

The Apostle Paul wrote these words. “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” (1 Timothy 5:1, 2)

Notice that Paul assumes that our best behavior would be used on our family members and he therefore exhorts Timothy (and us) to treat other Christians how we treat our family. Would it go over well if you treated the people at church the same way you’ve allowed yourself to treat your spouse and/or children from time to time in the privacy of your own home?

In the same letter to Timothy, Paul outlines the qualifications for leaders in the church and reveals that what goes on at home either qualifies or disqualifies you for leadership. Would others question your ability to minister to others if they saw a video (taken secretly) of you at home?

The only Biblical application I can see for ‘Don’t air our family’s dirty laundry’ is that we shouldn’t gossip about our family members or maliciously share their mistakes with others. Our homes should be a safe place to grow and make mistakes but it was never meant to be a place where we can behave badly because we’ve been led to believe that a Las Vegas like slogan applies, ‘what happens at home stays at home’.

Try this, next time you’re reading the Bible, with each instruction ask yourself “Am I living this at home?” If you’re not, stop and pray and ask for God’s help. Also start checking your home behavior, if you’re about to scream or get unreasonable stop and think if you’d speak that way to your pastor. If you’re doing something that you wouldn’t want to talk about Sunday morning then think about why you’d even consider behaving that way in front of the ones you love the most.

Perhaps my Granny knew this to be true and was reversing the metaphor when she hung out her large unmentionables to dry. Or perhaps she just wanted dry unmentionables. I’ll ask her when I get to heaven.

For more practical and Biblical Christian Parenting ideas we recommend the Christian resource, ‘Teaching Kids About God’.

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)