There’s so much out there today about parenting; the market is saturated with ‘how to’ guides on family life.  I’ve spoken to many parents over the years; many of them well read, others who have attended many parenting courses.  Out of the thousands of parents I’ve been in contact with, none of them have come across the one idea, book or course that answers all the questions.  They’ve not come across the one magic tool that addressed all of dilemmas, stresses and trials of raising children and leading a family.

Part of this is because we are all unique individuals and not everything will work for everyone.  Some of the reason could be because we tend to be reactive rather than proactive in our approach to parenting and leading family.  Many parents look for help or advice once they are facing a problem and not so much when things are going well.  Our society tends to search for solutions in the face problems and preventative approaches don’t get as much attention, until something becomes widespread, worrying and destructive.

For many parents, by the time they go looking for help things are bad.  Exhausted and desperate, parents search the internet for quick fixes to problems such as temper tantrums, refusal to eat, rebellion, smoking, drugs, self-harm, etc.  I have come across many parents who are so distraught at the behaviour of their child, they are ready and willing to try anything.  By this time, they are their wits end and for some, their relationship with their young person, even their partner, is in tatters.  I have found that about 90% of the time, the ‘problem’ is actually the symptom.  In most cases, it doesn’t take long to discover that the problem is deep rooted and normally a product of feeling rejected out of disjointed connection that was borne out of a toxic family culture.

On a basic level, a family is a group of people that are in relationship with each other.  From a married couple to one with 12 children, it constitutes a group of people.  When people are in relationship together, their attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and responses to one another form a culture.  Philosopher Edward S. Casey (1996) describes: “The very word culture meant “place tilled” in Middle English, and the same word goes back to Latin colere, “to inhabit, care for, till, worship.” To be cultural, to have a culture, is to inhabit a place sufficiently intensely to cultivate it – to be responsible for it, to respond to it, to attend to it caringly.”

I like to think of culture as a set of attributes that identify the way in which we live.  At the heart of it, these attributes reflect our core values and beliefs.  Culture shapes what some see as normal behaviour and practices, while others see those same things as strange, odd or even offensive.  An extreme example of this are facial piercings.  In Africa, there are tribes that see facial piercings, ear and neck stretchers as a sign of beauty and status.  You don’t see too many people walking around with an ear stretcher the size of a golf ball around here because it is not widely accepted in our Western culture.   Although this example is one of outward appearance, the premise of it can be transferred into how we relate to each other.  A few years ago I did some travelling with one of our church elders.  We visited a number of churches on that trip, and one night we were having a meal with a group of people who attended this one particular church.  Over dinner, I noticed how part of their culture included a high degree of sarcasm and mocking of each other.  They clearly didn’t see anything wrong with it, but I found myself feeling uncomfortable and awkward, especially when members of the group were being made the brunt of jokes.  This was an example of how a culture of sarcasm had been established in this group of people, and while they thought it was normal I found it dishonouring.

Like the examples above, every family has a culture.  The challenge, as parents and leaders, is what attributes do you want to nurture and cultivate in your family?  Culture will grow, whether we like it or not.  If we are not intentional about defining our culture, one will be defined for us.  I don’t think for a minute that those people in that church I spoke about earlier set out to define a culture of sarcasm and mocking.  But somewhere along the line that was established and allowed to breed, and as a result became a normal part of how they live – part of their culture.  As a result, they became defined by their culture rather than the other way around.  As parents and leaders, we must intentionally define the culture of our family rather than let an unwanted culture define us.

About 6 years ago, our church started tackling the issue of culture, and introduced five attributes that would define how we lived as a church family.  My husband and I realised that we had allowed a family culture to develop that needed to change, so using our new church culture as an example, we went about defining a new one.  This was going to be the way in which we chose to live; the way we cultivated our biggest investment – our family.  We didn’t really put a name to it at first, but this is basically what we went for:  G.R.O.W:

Generosity.  Respect.  Outstanding effort.  Working together.

Generosity – Lavish giving and sharing of time, attention, opportunities and possessions.  Any resource, natural or otherwise that I possess I share generously with each and every member of my family.  Efforts are made to counterbalance the ‘mine’ mentality (my toy, my stuff) with a more community approach.  This is woven in with the other attributes when looking at caring for and respecting others.  This way not one person feels taken for granted or exploited.

Respect – Due regard for the feelings, wishes or rights of others.  In this context, respect goes hand in hand with honour.  I categorically disagree that respect has to be earned.  It is an individual’s choice to show respect to someone, regardless of what they have or haven’t done.  When I walk into a coffee shop, I expect the person behind the counter to be welcoming and respectful towards me.  Up to this point, I haven’t done anything to earn that.  Likewise, that person expects me to treat them with respect.  Our hearts are our fuel tanks, and they need to stay full for us to function properly.  The fuel of our hearts is kindness, emotional warmth, attention, positive encouragement, etc.  Alternatively, cracks in the fuel tank appear when the opposite happens.  Shouting, snide remarks, sarcasm that hurts, name calling, taking possessions without asking (leading to mistrust).  Part of having an attribute of respect is topping up each other’s fuel tanks while keeping the cracks to a minimum.

Outstanding effort – Striving for excellence, not perfection.  In everything we do, our goal is to do it well and to the best of our ability.  A frequent question in our house is, ‘Did you do it well?’  We have worked hard to make that question something we all ask ourselves as well as each other.  This can be applied to everything we do, from making the bed to studying for a test to spending time with a friend.  The aim is to be able to say with confidence that we have done the best we could at whatever we were doing.   We need to be careful not to get disillusioned; excellence is not perfection.   To expect perfection from our children, and ourselves for that matter, breeds disappointment and rejection.  We are not perfect beings and therefore cannot produce perfection.  Excellence for our family is measured by our effort because unrealistic expectations only give way to feelings of disapproval and frustration.

Working together – We are a team.  In any team sport, each person has a position to play.  In ice hockey you are either center, forward, defence, or goalie.  In American football you are a quarterback, halfback, tight end, running back, etc.  Even in doubles tennis, you have one at the net while the other plays the back court.  Every member of the team knows their position and plays according to it.  The team is most effective when all the players work together playing their respective positions.  This is the same for a family; there are positions that we all take up and do well.  When we are working well as a team our family is functioning well.  So what happens when, for whatever reason, a team member gets taken out and that position is vacant?  A hole is created and the other team members have to cover it.  The team still works, kind of, but not as good as when the team are at full strength.  Again, this is the same with family, when we all pull together it makes us stronger.  We found that as we started to identify ourselves as a team, we became much more responsive to working together.  Individually we all became more responsible for our positions, and as a collective we were much better at covering each other.  This was really noticeable when I would be travelling alone with the children.  The children knew that we needed to work together so that we all stayed safe and ended up in the same place.

Working together can be seen as the lynchpin in cultivating a nurturing, supportive and honouring family environment.  When people are truly working together, there are aspects of generosity, respect and outstanding effort.  This has to be held in balance with the reality that sometimes parents, as the adults, will have to make decisions for the family that children are unhappy with.  That said, when working together, even the children are able to make a positive contribution in the decision making process.

The key to our culture is knowing who we are.  Our son is a goalie, and before every game I ask him: ‘who are you?’   He responds with, ‘a son.’  Our identity as sons and daughter of God is key to our motivation to serve each other well.

How do you intentionally embed culture?

1.  Start with yourself.

When we started to embed the GROW culture into our family, I became aware of how sincerely my daughter would cheer on her friends and fellow dance competitors.   My comments changed from, ‘you’re better than them,’ to, ‘you’re an amazing daughter.  Have fun.’  As I changed my message to her, she became more confident and her dancing went from great to amazing!  She became part of a dance team that went on to become third in the world!  Of course the hours she spent practising had a lot to do with it, but it was this combination that embedded the culture that she carries so well.

2.   Motivate

Part of fostering a good culture is motivating each other towards excellence.  In American football, the quarterback is a unique position in many different ways.  Not only is there only one on the field at any one time, but the quarterback needs to be able to lead his team.  He needs to develop a relationship with each and every one of his offence so that they want to work for him; they want to protect him from the oncoming assault.  In establishing an indepth emotional connection, members of the family want to excel at everything they do; not only for themselves but also for the ones they love.  Nothing makes me happier than to celebrate an achievement of a family member.  They all know this and this partly spurs them on.  However, what spurs them on even more is knowing that I will love them and be proud of them no matter what the outcome.

3.  Keep your culture protected in the storms

As our children became teenagers, the issues we were facing got bigger.  Many times it felt all too easy to throw culture out the window and react to the situations in a way that would not have been helpful or constructive.  Many times my husband and I have had to intentionally put our relationship with our children in front of the conflict.  There have been times when we have had to meet them part way, without compromising our family culture.  This has not always been easy, but the end results have been worth it every time.  We have realised that when we chose to operate within our culture, our relationships are preserved and connection deepens.  During times when we haven’t done that, we have had a lot of damage to repair as parenting out of fear only leaves carnage.

Whatever it looks like, I encourage you to define your family culture.  This has become the cornerstone of our relationships and connection together.  There have been tough times, but defining our culture has meant we are clear on who we are and how much we are loved, by each other and by God.