Sustainable Parenting

108. How to Stay Purpose-Driven as a Family

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Have you ever wished you had more purpose in your daily family time?  Maybe you are tired of battling with your kids over WHY you set the boundaries you set.  

And maybe you are finally ready to focus on the long-term character qualities you want your kids to have when they are 25.

Today we explore how creating a family mission statement provides direction for making parenting decisions and helps articulate values that guide your family. This approach transforms difficult conversations with children by referencing shared values rather than arbitrary rules.

By the time you finish listening, you will know:

• Why a Mission Statement for your Family is valuable, and can decrease daily arguments. 


• How to use your mission statement as a reference point during difficult discussions about privileges or behavior.


• Consider resources like "Choose Intentionally" character cards to help discuss values with children.: https://chooseintentionally.com/collections/all/products/copy-of-family-intention-kit-1

If you enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe, leave us a review and share it with others that you think would benefit from sustainable parenting. 

And if you've been wanting to dive in deeper, you can always make a clarity call with me via the link below.


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1) Use this link for a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting.

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Speaker 1:

Do you ever wish you could have a little more direction in your family about why you say no to certain things, like when your kids are begging you for more screen time or to have a cell phone or a Stanley cup or whatever the thing may be something to fall back on? That's sort of a third party bad guy that says these are our family values, and this is why we're making this choice A, so that it could help you have less arguments and. B, so that you feel like your family is constantly moving in a purpose-centered direction. Well, friend, today's episode is for you, where we're going to talk about how to make a family mission statement and why it's important. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome. First of all, let's talk about why it's important to have a family mission statement, and let me just be clear right up front that, if you're not someone who's about wordsmithing an exact phrase, like you may have had to do for a nonprofit or a business, so that there's this perfectly crafted mission statement. Mission statements can also be bullet points, key values that you're talking about regularly with your family. So please know that, as we're talking about this today, I'm using mission statement in sort of a rough, loose term, saying some sort of phrasing or talking about your values regularly with your kids in a way that's upfront and they know those values. But please feel free to either put it into a really cute and they know those values, but please feel free to either put it into a really cute, short, two sentences or have it be some bullet points or a word cloud or whatever feels valuable for you.

Speaker 1:

The reason it's important to have discussions with your kids about values is if we don't know where we're going, it's really hard to get there, and I can say that I see time and again. Some of the frustration around parenting is we get short-sighted. We get where we're just trying to get today to be as easy as possible, to decrease the overwhelm, the frustrating moments, and so we can get into just wanting our kids to be obedient and quiet and controlled so that we can just get dinner on the table, we can just finally go to sleep, you know, so that we can just get through life, and absolutely there is a lot of importance to that. And, at the end of the day, though, our point of parenting is we're trying to raise humans we're really proud of. We're trying to raise good humans that, at the age of 25, are going to be respectful, responsible, fun to be around, contributing to society and able to maintain successful relationships. So, in that vein, we have to have a direction we're going towards in order to ever get there, to have a direction we're going towards in order to ever get there, and so naming our values is one key way to make sure we're going in the direction of a bigger purpose.

Speaker 1:

How do you make a mission statement? So, first of all, I would recommend you sit down with your partner or sit down with yourself, if you're a single parent and brainstorm the values and character traits that are important for you, that you want your kids to have when they are 25. Do you want them to be respectful, creative, able to experience a joyful, healthy life? What is important to you? Brainstorm and just let your mind flow, and then come together or boil it down by yourself as to what are the top five that feel most central to the core of your family values. So when you've boiled it down to your top five or so, with some flexibility, if you absolutely need a few extras, then I would recommend you have a family meeting with kids that are older than four and say here's the thing we've decided.

Speaker 1:

We want to have a mission statement, some key direction of what our family's all about that can help us answer questions when we're debating whether we're going to, you know, watch more TV, or we are going to have phones or whatever the difficult discussions might be. Or if you're wondering why we take time to go camping together and not just stay home and veg with our friends. We want to make a purpose statement and we want your help, and so what that looks like is we'd like to hear what are the top words that come to mind that are important to you to be able to use to describe our family, and you may need to help them a little. You can look online and get some good lists of character values or family values. They may be religious, they may be focused on the earth, they may be focused on justice and social justice, whatever is important to your family, you can get out those words and share some suggestions. Do we want to be a family that's making sure everyone always feels safe with us? Do we want to be a family that is fun and playful? Do we want to be a family that's welcoming?

Speaker 1:

And write down as many words as you can that your family agrees that you're about, and then you can boil it down from there to craft a mission statement. Again that might be an actual two sentences. We in this family value X, y Z and it's important to us that we're going to do X, y Z in the world and we are going to show our values through ABC actions, something like that. And then I recommend putting it up on the wall, maybe even making a crest, like the old fashion practice in England where you would have a crest with symbols that represent those ideas. That can be especially cool with younger kids that you have something visual that shows pictures and not just words to represent the things that are important to you.

Speaker 1:

And you can put up that crest family crest that you've created and or the words or phrases you've come up with, and then it's a grounding point to be able to come back to time and again when you're having difficult discussions about how we treat each other and the types of privileges or technology things we're going to have in our life, that it's going to be able to come back to these key foundational concepts.

Speaker 1:

And if you're looking for an additional tool to help you, I want to just recommend a tool that's called Choose Intentionally, and this is a resource that was brought to being by another mom here in Montana who has a business with these great people character cards that have a key phrase on the front like I choose to be a good friend today, and then on the back has several key ways that we can act that out, ways that we as parents can coach our child in that value, and ways we can circle back to check in on if the child has been practicing that value.

Speaker 1:

I think it's just so important that we seek resources to be talking about character, involving character, in our discussions with our kids, so that we can be moving towards that direction. If we do not know where we're trying to head, we are never going to get there. All right, friend, I hope this serves you again in ways that give you tools to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time. So parenting finally feels sustainable. And remember, as always, if you enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe, leave us a review and share it with others that you think would benefit from sustainable parenting. And if you've been wanting to dive in deeper, you can always make a clarity call with me via the link in the show notes. See you next week.