"If you don't have a clear vision of the future, your future is threatened to be a repeat of the past." - A. R. Bernard

No-one likes how conflict and stress feel in the home. If something is not working, it's time for a change.

We are going to make it everyone's mission to find new ways you can all live happy and healthy, support each other, and have lots of family fun you will fondly remember together.

This is your time to create a clear vision of what you want your family life to look and feel like so you can start moving in the same direction as a united team.

"You can never really live anyone else's life, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you've become yourself." - Eleanor Roosevelt

We've all heard the saying, "Do as I say, not as I do." Chances are you may have heard a parent say that to you. But we also know that as children, we learnt the most from our own parents' example, both bad and good. And that this has shaped us in many ways into the parent we are today. 

Although we can't expect ourselves or our kids to be perfect, we can aim to hold each other to a high standard of personal and family conduct, and teach our kids to do the same.

This is where values and principles come in. 

"With each human right we have comes the personal responsibility to give that right to others."

- Jarrod L'Estrange 

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the internationally mandated children’s rights framework. 

We don't want our children to grow up feeling entitled. We want to teach them to be respectful and responsible human beings.

Having a clear understanding of how to explain basic human rights to our children allows us to then address their responsibility to uphold them for others.

This lesson is a great starting place for Week 4 where we discuss family rules and consequences.  

"Teamwork makes the dream work!"

- Unknown

Our aim at this step is to help our children to become more intrinsically motivated, to do the right thing because it's the right thing, not because they'll be punished.

Getting your child to weigh in about what rules best help the values and principles of your home to be adhered to gives them a sense of control. It allows them to have a deeper understanding of why there is a need for the rules in the first place.

The idea here is also that this will make them more likely to follow them, not always perfectly, but at least with some hard work and prompting, more consistently.

Giving our children an understanding of the difference between natural and logical, positive and negative consequences is a great way to introduce more independence and personal responsibility as well.

"The key to teaching discipline in our homes is to model good habits and follow consistent routines."

- Jarrod L'Estrange 

Do you struggle to get your kids to do chores without fighting? Have you ever sat down as a family and made a list of EXACTLY WHAT needs to be done?

Our aim at this step is have everyone contribute as a family unit to create a cleaner, more organised home. To have a fairer distribution of age, ability and maturity appropriate tasks.

For this reason, this is a week that parents who do most of the housework will love!

Deciding as a family whether something is simply done for the sake of contributing, being responsible, and living in alignment with your family values OR carries some form of privilege or reward is decided by all of you here.

Each family member is encouraged to take ownership and satisfaction for a job well done, and a home that FEELS and functions better for everyone. 

"Most parents are consistently inconsistent following through on what they say, and kids pick up on this. It's time to make a change!"

It's graduation week for your family. You've been working hard to improve your families communication skills and learn to cooperate better together. You've built a solid foundation, constructed firm boundaries to teach discipline. You have all learnt that teamwork makes the dream work. 

This final week is a fun and interactive arts and craft activity where you will all create a visual representation of the 6 step process in the form of a miniature home everyone will keep in their room to refer back to.

Here is a video of the first time I tried putting this activity together to explain to my family. The entire process has been improved greatly since then ready for you.