Our children’s school invested in The Leader In Me program offered through the Franklin Covey team, the folks who bring us the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” The curriculum has been a huge success and I highly recommend all parents encourage their children’s school administrators to invest in this amazing program.
There is a multi year structured roll out from Faculty and Staff, Students and Home. Year one is a detailed roll out to faculty, year 2 is a roll out to the students at the school, and year 3 involves the parents.
This year we are rolling out to parents. My wife and a few other parents attended the day long seminar that educated the group on how to be a highly effective family, going through each habit and providing training on how to coach others through this invaluable exercise. AT the end of the day those attending were certified to instruct others on this powerful material.
This week we were introduced to the first 3 “habits of highly effective families” to our first group of parents.
1. Be Proactive – proactive parents are thoughtful about their response to children’s behavior. Think about having a “pause” button that you can use to give you a breath between a child’s behavior and your response.
2. Begin with the end in mind – this seems like a ‘no-brainer’ in the business world, but in the world of interpersonal family relationships the intentional of family life is a lacking priority. We were encouraged to take time to think about our family “brand” and to take a distinct time to create a family mission statement.
3. Put First Things First – Our culture has a tendency to encourage if not reward reactive and impulsive decisions. A successful family (or business) will know the destination they are working towards and make adjustments in their lives to ensure they get there. The course used the analogy of an airplane to illustrate that it is common to be of course most of time time but corrections can easily bring us back into alignment with our destination. They also used the pre-eminent example of intentional living – Professor – How to live a happier life.
I am excited for our next session where we will dig into the next 3 habits.
My wife and I are big “7 Habit’s” believers and have found that routine and structure have been a HUGE blessing to our children and even our marriage as we navigate life.