How to Easily Keep Your Family Connected in 20 Minutes a Day

How to Keep Your Family Connected

“I don’t care how poor a man is; if he has family, he’s rich.”
~Dan Wilcox, M*A*S*H

What if I told you about an easy to manage method for keeping you and your children so connected, they will be far less likely to unplug, even when settled beneath the stormiest clouds of childhood.

In the interest of full disclosure: I do not yet have two teenagers. You may call me starry eyed, but it is my emphatic belief that though the bonds in our house will certainly mature, they will never lose the core of what we have built from the beginning; I find it impossible to imagine that concrete poured deep into consistent habits will crumble, even when shoved up against the inevitable earthquakes of adolescence that can so easily tear families asunder.

The many minutes of our lives are often only loyal subjects to the whims of our daily schedules. Yet no matter the flurry or fury of a calendar week, it is rare to not find our family breaking bread and passing it across the table during our day’s final meal.

Every day needs an anchor – a dividing line to distinguish one sunset from the next; a manner to measure that breath that exists only between exhale and inhale. In our family it is never enough to simply parse our table into four sections and allow the seconds to elapse while dinner music does the heavy lifting. We listen to dinner music, but only as percussion. The melody of our future dinnertime memories drifts through the air alongside the shared details of our day.

It is there amid the easy comfort of automatic eye contact where the notes of our days harmonize into their singular song.

We rotate around the table, each of us in turn reciting the best and worst parts of our day – those moments that for better or worse drew distinction from that day’s light. Best and worst are given equal billing, as we teach our children that only by experiencing the sour of life can they truly savor its sweet. There are few better avenues for getting to know your child then giving them a stage to stand on, then fading into the background as they articulate those things that are most meaningful to them.

We model honesty. If one of my children has done something to cast a shadow across my day, I have no difficulty letting them know it was my worst part. We expect the same candor from them. I like hearing my four or seven year say things such as, “the worst part of my day was my behavior before rest time. I could have done better,” while never once shattering the fix of their gaze.

I enjoy this not because I like to revel in the shortcomings of my offspring, but because I feel as though this type of honest self reflection is rare. Catching it in childhood is like catching a caterpillar, not near as difficult as catching it once emerged from the chrysalis of adolescence.

Cindy and I were recently wondering out loud whether the best part/worst part tradition was one we passed to our children with intention. Neither of us could honestly commit. It was something we have done together since always. We can’t put too fine a point on it, but we know we’ve been doing it since sometime before we started living together but after we knew we always would.

By the time Mia was two, the best part and worst part had three even slices. Max, who looks to his sister to learn just about everything, was cooing on cue before his answers were whistling through a freshly cut set of teeth. We love how they’ve embraced the habit and hope to see it spread to the next generation. So far so good.

The other day I was absent for dinner, my presence required at an orientation for the parents of incoming kindergartners at Max’s new school. I returned home late, but Max wasn’t quite ready to bid farewell to the moon. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” I could hear his rat-a-tat-tat as I ascended the stairs. “We did not do the best and worst part of our day,” he declared, fingers in the air and eyebrows crawling together.

“You’re absolutely right,” I said, grabbing three of his digits and leading him toward the bedroom. “What was the worst part of your day?”

“That you weren’t here for dinner,” he looked down.

“How about your best part?”

“That you’re home now and I get to tell you.” His smile spread and I tucked him in with a sigh.

Writer Dad

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