Deep and meaningful connections with extended family and friends: the glue that holds it all together.
“Joe and Sally did not have close family nearby, so they were delighted when a neighbor started a monthly parent and kid gathering. First the families all ate together. Then the kids played outside or in the game room while the parents chatted openly about monthly themes on the challenges of raising kids. Now Joe and Sally feel like they have “family” who care about them right in their neighborhood. “
Discussion:
Over the last two months we have explored many villages in the life of a family. Each of them can support our kids and our family in different ways. What is critical for these villages is to have close connections: people with whom we can be open, honest, and authentic and who accept and support us with unconditional love. What separates a village that just becomes another place to drive your kids to from a village that actually holds us dearly are these close connections. Close loved ones, both friends and extended family, are the glue that makes a village meaningful.
How does one build close, meaningful connections with other parents? It is wonderful to hang out on the sidelines of a sports game and chat with parents or to hang out together at the school carnival. This can be relaxing and fun. How does a parent take it deeper? I believe getting together with other parents monthly focusing on the goal of supporting each other in our parenting it the single best way for us to be really open and honest about our struggles, to share what works and doesn’t work, and to explore new ideas to try. With these real discussions, each parent will not only connect with other parents, they will connect with each other’s kids as we share our stories. The next time we see that child in the school hallway, we naturally reach out and connect with them more deeply, becoming another set of caring eyes “making sure he/she turns out OK.” If a serious or troubling issue arises, there is built in support for you and your family through the tough times. When problems are addressed early, they can be managed with the help of extended family and friends and occasional help from professionals. If we let problems grow too large, the intervention needed and pain experienced by both parents and kids is so much bigger. With this support each of us can be become more effective, confident, and competent in our parenting.
The themes of these monthly meetings can be:
- Topics that each parent volunteers to lead.
- Monthly parent book club, selecting different parenting books or a few chapters from that book.
- Webinars or videos that each parent takes turn finding on line or renting from the library.
- Raising Our Daughters and Raising Our Sons Parenting Guides can be used as resource material for parent discussion groups. There are many ideas for strengthening each of our villages in every one of the ten chapters.
Your group can commit to: “Together my parent group can influence all the villages.” You can:
- Organize a Girls Night Out and then a Boys Night Out for the incoming sixth graders at a middle school. The kids come for an evening of fun planned by the kids and then break up into small groups, lead by local high school teens, for real discussions about friendship, cliques, and the challenges of middle school.
- Address alcohol use by hosting a “Not My Kid” presentation, sending a Safe Party Guideline to every family in the high school, and putting a star by every family that agrees to follow the guidelines in the school roster
- Start a mother-daughter group that met every other month while the parents continued the Raising Our Daughter book every other month
- Promote the 40 Developmental Assets in your community which involved school, church, non-profits, and city government.
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If I knew then what I know now,
I would have directed ALL of my energy toward the goal: “My family is supported by a tight-knit group of people who unconditionally love us.”
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What was your biggest take-away?
What action step do you plan to take?
What additional questions do you have about this topic?
Hi! I’m Dr. Kathy. Welcome to my website! Although Family Empowerment Network is formally closed, we want to keep these resources available to you. Our belief is that parents are the most wise and intuitive about what is best for their children. However, parents sometimes need the support of effective, timeless, compassionate parenting information and strategies. On this website you will find our three parenting books on boys, girls, and kids’ social lives and ten years of monthly newsletter articles. In addition, a powerful, under-recognized resource is the support of other parents. Here you will find how to use our books as discussion guides for monthly self-led parenting groups. One last resource: I am still available to give talks and workshops.
