Family Rules

A few years ago, we got rid of a lot of little rules in favor of a few simple rules.

1)  Be safe.
2)  Be healthy.

We have since added:

3) Be kind.

Joie came into our family quite suddenly after an accident claimed the lives of the rest of her family members.  It was a loss that drained energy, and tested the limits of faith, patience and love in our family.  Years earlier, when it became popular to have a family mission statement, Tim and I scribbled down ideas, but top on the list was one statement that has remained through the years:  Our family is a safe family.

Fighting and hitting hadn't been much of a problem before the difficult emotions of grief took hold, but after the accident, we were introduced to sibling rivalry in ways we had never before encountered as parents.  We tried to be understanding and patient.  The mom in me loved them no matter what and wanted to be understanding about what they were going through.  The therapist in me knew that in order to feel safe, the rules were just as important as they ever had been.

One day when big brother chased little sister home from school threatening her all the way, we decided it was time to take things back to basics.  "Our family is a safe family,"  we announced.  "And our home is a safe home."  Honestly, my own sense of safety and certainty was so distorted at the time I remember hearing myself say those words, and thinking, "How can you promise safety when an entire family just died?"  Back then, safety felt like an illusion.

But we proceeded, and soon it was easy to identify a lot of behaviors in the "not safe" category.  If you walk past someone in the hallway and wave your fist in the air, you're not really hurting someone, but did the other person feel safe when you did that?  No?  Then go sit on the beanbag or your bed or anywhere out of the way until you feel like you can be safe around the rest of the family.

Within weeks peace was restored, and as parents, Tim and I gave thanks for the foresight we had to identify that simple mission statement years earlier.

Fast forward to December 2010.  Gabby joined our family.  Playfully she'd walk up to her new siblings and poke them, kick them and hang on them.  It took about one day for the newness to wear off and for high levels of irritability to set in.  We weren't even at home yet, but this time it didn't take weeks to return to our simple motto:  Our family is a safe family.  Right away we introduced the KYHFOOTY rule and things settled down.  A few days later when our flight out of Omaha was cancelled until the following day, what could have been tension at not being able to return home turned into a fun evening of sibling bonding at a hotel swimming pool.  Safety had become a feeling rather than a behavior, and relationships were free to grow.

Be Healthy and Be Kind are also important, and have been added later to encompass other family values.  Relationships are also on that list of values, and keeping the rules simple has allowed us to enjoy relationships in a way that is freeing.

Read my most recent counseling website post here for more ideas on keeping rules simple.