Hi there, it's Finley 👋🏼
Happy Friday to the 32 parents who joined this past week.
Today's story takes 2 minutes to read.
We all have them.
Our family traditions.
Experiences that become a part of the fabric of our lives thanks to great stories or meals or locations.
Oh, and lots and lots of repetition.
One of the greatest joys you experience as a parent is seeing the moments that you love eventually embraced by your kids.
I grew up spending my summers on the lake. We had a multi-generation lake house that smelled musty and included an ancient oven that burned everything on the bottom.
My mom loved going to the lake and taking her two kids because she grew up going to the same lake house as a kid with her parents. Now, we take our kids to the lake and spend days on the boat.
It has become a 5 generation tradition and family identifier for us.
My kids talk about the lake year round. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, they are talking about the next time we get to go to the lake together.
Building traditions for our kids is important, and your season of kids is the total sweet spot. Repetitive meaningful experiences bring so much connection.
The problem though is the expectation that parents put on these experiences. We bring our own historical baggage or want the weekend or trip or meal to be exactly as we imagined.
When we do that, we remove the magic. We take the joy and bonding out of the time with our kids when the pressure of the tradition is greater than the presence we bring to it.
Don't be like me. Lower your expectations. Any family tradition will do.
I grew up watching the Masters with my dad. It was a four-day golf tournament that occurred at the same time, on the same tv channel, playing the same golf course year after year after year.
It is my favorite sporting event on the calendar. I look forward to it 51 weeks a year. Why? Because it brings me closer to my dad.
Sure the golf is amazing, but it was a tradition (unlike any other) that connected me with my father.
It doesn't matter what holiday, cabin, event, or adventure it is. Go all in and bring your young kids along with you. They will love it because you do.
"Parenting is not a series of dramatic confrontation-confession events, but rather a life-long process of incremental awareness and progressive change.
Here, in a phrase, is what you are committing yourself to: many mini-moments of change."
Source: Parenting from Paul David Tripp
That's all for today's writing of Parenting: What we've learned (so far)
If you had a small take away or any of this was engaging,
would you consider sharing it with other parents in your community?
Here is a public link to all the emails sent so far
We'll visit again next Friday - Finley
Helping propel moms & dads of 3 to 13 year-olds to invest in their power-decade of parenting. Father of 3 teenagers and pastor of 20 years turned digital writer.
Family Friday Newsletter - 3.5 min read by: Finley Robinson A Single Sentence from a Season Ahead A volume of time with mom and dad will unlock great things for your kids. "Figure It Out" Our kids heard me say this in our home more times than I can count. It was used less when they were little, but with each year they grew older, they heard it more and more. I know they grew tired of it, and I'm certain I said it with the wrong tone many, many times. That doesn't mean it wasn't one of the...
Family Friday Newsletter - 2.5 min read by: Finley Robinson A Single Sentence from a Season Ahead Twenty years ago, as a young father, I copied down these 6 Power Phrases that every kid needs to hear from their parent. Downhill vs Uphill Somewhere around the time when each of my kids turned 5, my wife and I blocked off a few hours on a sunny weekend and attempted to teach our kids how to ride a bike. We went to a part of the Razorback Greenway near our house and I ran alongside them while...
Family Friday Newsletter - 2.5 min read by: Finley Robinson A Single Sentence from a Season Ahead One of the greatest joys you experience as a parent is seeing the moments that you love eventually embraced by your kids. The Half-Whole Family-isms are special and unique trademarks that exist in each home. They show up as sayings, traditions, meals, and practices. People outside the family don't easily understand them but everyone inside gets it. Mine eats Pig Sandwiches.We have reunions at...