Intro. Chapt. to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families

Chapt. Title: "You're Going to be "Off Track" 90% of the Time. So What?"



The author says that even good families and great families are off track 90% of the time. The important thing to remember however, is to have a sense of destination - know where you are headed. An analogy is given of an airplane. The airplane has a destination but during flight there is wind, rain, turbulance,and air traffic. These and more factors deviate the plane and cause the pilot to have to be constantly receiving feed back from other sources, insturments, control towers ect... . Based upon the feed back, they make adjustments throughout the flight in order to ultimately reach their destination.



This is such a great analogy to our family as we do have an ultimate destination which we finally wrote down last year in the form of a family mission statement. However, there are times when our words and actions are off course and we have to get back on track.



The purposes for the book are: 1) A clear vision of your destination, 2) A flight plan-basically principles that you lay out that you can live by. To go with the "flow" in society today is fatal. Our society today cannot be the principles you govern your family by as they are not centered upon everlasting truth, God's word. 3) Help recognize and develop 4 unique gifts you have that will help you become an agent of change in your family. It is compared to the expression of "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for the day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."



Within the introduction the reader is encouraged to involve their family as he/she reads. There are great discussion questions and stories for younger and older children. My family did not oppose and they willingly allowed us to take 30-40 minutes after dinner to talk and read. I believe this was a very special bonding time for us. I asked them if they would be willing to do this on a somewhat regular basis through out the next several months, all agreed. I know this is a high committment and there will be times harder than others. However, I believe my family is worth it, not perfect!



One last encouraging analogy was "The miracle of the Chinse Bamboo Tree". After the seed of the tree is planted, you see absolutely nothing for 4 years except a very small shoot coming from a bulb. The growth is all underground for those four years establishing a very strong, deep and wide root system. Finally in the 5th year the tree grows up to 8 ft.! Like the gardner of the bamboo tree, we must be patient and know that our diligence and persistance will finally pay off and it will all be worth it.



We must never give up on parenting our children. No matter how far off track we feel we have gotten, we can always take steps to correct the course. An important key to remember is to keep working from the inside out and keep getting back on track when we blow it!!



May you be blessed as hopefully you have "gleened" a little upon the reading of this entry.



Striving for more Authentic Families,

Darla