Your Family Constitution: A Modern Approach to Family Values and Household Structure
Your Family Constitution: A Modern Approach to Family Values and Household Structure
by Scott Gale
Spectrum International Press, 2009
Family dysfunction is running rampant in our culture. We live in an age of entitlement. This creates problems for parents to effectively parent their kids, and for kids to develop proper discipline and life skills. Fundamental respect and discipline have become casualties in our culture at all levels. Many parents overlook the gravity of this cultural shift, discussing the obvious symptoms of entitlement. There are life long consequences when parents fail to impart accountability in a child, as well as constantly excusing a kid’s self-centered and apathetic behaviour. A negative behaviour such as lying or laziness, can end up being rewarded by a lack of consequence, and can become the groundwork for a bad habit. Once a bad habit is formed, it is difficult to uproot it and replace it with a good one.
Because of this, there are anxieties to modern parenthood. For the past three decades, the world has been changing at an alarming rate. Life is faster. “What’s in it for me?” has replaced “How can I help?” as the prevailing mentality. Lawsuits, information overload, and cultural changes have degraded personal discipline and accountability in the classroom, work place, and home. Deep-rooted appreciation, work ethic and values have become more the exception than the norm. Parents struggle to raise responsibilities and respectful kids. The Age of Entitlement is clearly upon us.
It is for this reason that parents must create a family constitution. The Family Constitution steers behavioral choices by leveraging mutual understanding, clear expectations and prescribed incentives. The Constitutional Way harnesses kids’ energy and ideas, rather than dismissing their opinions. This book explains this method of parenting in detail. It shows how parents can really gain a lot of leverage with their kids by using this method. In order to follow this parenting style, the parents must construct a family constitution.
After the Family Constitution is constructed, the parents and kids must live the constitution. This is the hardest part of this process. The important for parents to remember is that this is a journey and it can take a long time to put this structure in place. Parents must meet as a family once a week. There will always be issues that are not addressed by the Family Constitution. The family must solve these issues by applying clarity, consistency and commitment. Change is inevitable. Minimally, circumstances shift as kids get older. Some boundaries become antiquated. Others grow in importance through life’s various stages. Whatever the impetus for change, structure must adjust to effectiveness. The family constitution should evolve with the family’s needs and conditions.
The Family Constitution can only be effective if the whole family makes a genuine commitment to work through family challenges together. If the family decides to take on the process, they should be judicious and diligent with each other. They should have faith that the effort will pay off. Then they should try to make it happen.
In conclusion, I think that Gale’s book is very important in today’s culture of entitlement. I commend Gale on taking on such a difficult topic. If implemented, the family constitution could go a long way towards fixing some dysfunctional familial situations and save a family from painful miscommunications and ultimately divorce. So, I think that the journey that Gale outlines in the book is definitely worth the effort.
© Irene S. Roth, December 20, 2009
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