I had a conversation the other day with a close friend about parenting. The next day, I watched General Conference, and the topic of parenting came up again and again. It touched me.
I realized that I tend to get argumentative with my kids during difficult times. And right now in the middle of a year-long deployment, we are experiencing some difficult times. It often feels like we are battling against each other. In reality, we are all after the same goals. We all want to be happy and live in harmony and learn and love and grow.
So tonight, for Family Home Evening, we discussed what it means to be part of a family. We likened our family to a sports team. We discussed the different positions of each player and their importance on the team. We are all on the same team. We are all important. We need every player to do his/her part to succeed.
I emailed Erick about it. He took some time to type a letter to the kids about working together and being a part of a team. His letter spoke to them much more deeply than I could have done alone.
Tonight we committed to work together as a family team to help and encourage and lift and love one another.
We made posters reminiscent of my high school days and hung them around the house: "Go Joey!" "You can do it Bailey!" "Keep it up TJ!" "We love you David!"
We even took a team photo:
It was a good family night.
