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Does your family need a reboot?
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May 18, 2022
Is your family life a wreck? Do you long to be the best family you can be but don't know how? Being an autism family isn't easy. You have to purposely set out to do the hard work of being a team. It's not too late. This video helps you reboot your family! #autismland #family #autism www.ourcrazyadventuresinautismland.com
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Hi, my name is Penny and I blog at OurCrazyAdventuresInAutismLand.com and today we're going to talk about
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does your family need a reboot? Sometimes we just need to stop and we need to reboot
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We just need to refocus our family and sort of figure out what we're doing so that we can be the best family we can be
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So that's what we're going to talk about today. So before we could talk about making our family the best family it can be we need to stop and
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remember that every family is unique. My family is not going to look like your family which is not going to look like your neighbor's family
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My family doesn't look like my besties family. We're just we're different families and we have different needs
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So we're all going to be unique. So resist the urge to compare your family to any other family
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My family looks a little different than all the other families. Because I have one child with autism and I have one child studying to be a professional ballerina
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So there's not a lot of people in the world that have the same family dynamic that I have
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So I need to resist the urge to compare what my family does in our limited amount of family
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time to what other families are doing. Okay. We also need to recognize that being a cohesive family unit is hard work
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It really, really is. Just like marriage is hard work. Being a cohesive family is hard work and you have to be intentional about it
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Great families just don't happen. You don't just wake up one morning and be like, oh, I got a great family
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Yay. Lucky me. No. Just like you don't wake up one morning and you're like, woohoo, I got a great marriage
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Yay, lucky me. I didn't do anything. That's not the way the world works. To have a great family, you have to work at it
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And so taking this class is one of the ways you can work at it. You need to celebrate your accomplishments
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Big, small, doesn't matter. Your kid remembered to put the clothes into the dryer
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You need to high five them and celebrate that. because working together as a family is one of the ways that you become a great family
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And everybody's going to want to work together if we always celebrate each other
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So make it a point to always be building your children up
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and celebrating when they make the family better. So you want to make it a priority to spend time together as a family
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We're going to talk about that in a little bit. but um like i said earlier being a great cohesive family is not gonna happen unless you you put the
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work in unless you attend to it so you need to make it a priority that you guys are doing something
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together on a regular basis and take a team mentality in our house we have the little model
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that we're all in this together so if one of us falls all of us is gonna fall so if if we're having
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an autism rising day, then the whole family is having an autism rising day
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And so we do whatever we need to do to make the day better for Logan because
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that in turn makes the day better for the rest of the family. And so we take it
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as in we're all we're all one big team so we all need to work on making everyone
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in the team feel loved, accepted, and successful. So in my rebooting family video series, I have the first thing we talk about after we talk about not comparing, you know, because every family is unique and all that
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We start rebooting our family by listing what's right with our family
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So what is your family doing right? What absolutely works for your family
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so take some time as a family to sit down and everybody list out everything that's working
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maybe taco Tuesday is working for your family everybody can get to the table at that night
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um and who doesn't love tacos so maybe that's working for your family write that down
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maybe um maybe having your meal planner on your whiteboard is working for your family because
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then everybody knows what's for dinner that day. It might not be working for your family, but it
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alleviates a lot of stress in my family if everybody knows what's for dinner that day
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and then they don't have to ask me 3,000 times, what are we having for dinner today? Because they
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already know. So maybe that's something that works, but just make a list of everything everyone loves
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about your family, and try to be as specific as possible in that list so that you know what's
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working really well for your family at this moment. You keep everything on that list. If it's working for your family, then you keep it. If it's not
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broke, don't fix it. So that's why you have the meeting and you sit down and everybody lists out
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what they think is right with the family, what they love about being in the family
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and then you keep those things because those things are already working for you
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so you knew this was going to be the next slide we listed what was right with our family now we
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need to take some time to list what's wrong with your family what what is not working in your family
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okay maybe maybe not having set laundry days isn't working for your family because then everybody
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wants to use the washer and dryer at the same time so maybe there's a lot of bickering over
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whose laundry day it is um so that doesn't work for your family whatever maybe taco tuesday isn't
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working for your family because someone doesn't like tacos i don't know how that's possible but
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you know perhaps someone doesn't like taco tuesday so it's not it's a it's a hassle for everybody to
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try to get home on a tuesday maybe you need to have taco tuesday on thursday um you know so
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everybody gets to have a voice to say what they don't like about the family what they what they
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don't like in the schedule or in your traditions or you know what they would change if it was
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you know if they were in charge of the family it is don't let it turn into a complaining session
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we're trying to be positive and we're trying to um to find things to fix so this is not the time
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to say you don't like that your sister brushes her hair with your brush and she does it every
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time well you could say that part but when I start going into she does it every time
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and I've told her and she's just too stupid to realize that she's using my brush. Yeah, yeah
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no, back it up. You can say I don't like the fact that everybody uses my brush
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but you can't say you can't personally attack other people in the family. So you want to set
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those ground rules to start with because you can start talking about what's wrong with your family
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and then you can forget what's right with your family because then it sort of snowballs
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So try to keep it focused on you're just trying to list the things that are wrong
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Because whatever's wrong with your family, you're going to get rid of those
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They don't work for you. So Taco Tuesday works for me on Tuesday
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But Taco Tuesday works for my bestie on Friday. Because that's the day her whole family is there
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So they have, you know, Fiesta Friday. but that that's you just when she tried to put she tried to implement taco Tuesday because that's
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what I was doing that my whole family could sit around the table and she saw how great it was
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and it didn't work for her family she had to realize that it doesn't work for her family
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because her family's different from my family so she got rid of trying to get trying to get
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together on Tuesday when they have church and all that and decided that they were going to have their their family time on Friday So give everyone a voice to say what wrong but don give everybody a voice to attack other people
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and have it turn into this shouting match. That's not your desired effect. Your desired effect is to
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find out what's not working in your family and so you can either fix it or you can get rid of it
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So this activity is a little tougher than what's right with your family and what's wrong with your
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family because those are normally cut and dry. Now I just want to stop for a moment here and say I
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would not in one family meeting do what's right with my family, what's wrong with my family, and
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what's mediocre with my family all at once because you're going to overwhelm your family. So that's
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why in the family reboot we sort of take 30 days to go through it because we start with what's right
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and we keep that and then we we go on to what's wrong at a different time and then we brainstorm
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ideas on how to get rid of that or how to fix that or or um or whatever and then we go on to
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what's mediocre with your family what's working but it's just okay like you could take it or leave
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it okay you it doesn't it didn't make the what's right with the family because you know people loved
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it but it didn't make what's wrong with the family because people absolutely hated it it's just okay
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so then once you get that list you need to take a vote and in my family we do majority rules
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on um on some things you know some things are just decisions that dead mom have to make because
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their dead mom. You know, you just, those are decisions that the parents have to
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make. There are parental decisions that you just have to overrule whatever
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decision the children have decided that they want to make for their best
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interest. But we take a vote usually just so that we can see where everybody
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stands and then we decide whether to keep it or toss it. Some things that just
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work okay are worth keeping in my particular family things that work okay is um that they
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rotate through uh wiping down the kitchen at night before they go to bed it's not exciting
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it's not you know it's not what's wrong with our family it's not what's right with our family it's
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just, but it doesn't necessarily need to be tossed. It works. It's just not exciting. So
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you need to decide if it's mediocre, what works and it works, whether to keep it or toss it. So
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that's your decision for what's mediocre. All right, so we have our list of what's right. We have our list of what's wrong. We have our list
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of what's mediocre that we're keep what we're keeping and what we're tossing now we need to
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get into the nitty-gritty of actually getting to work with it now you can you can skip to this step
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right after what's right and go ahead and keep implementing what's right and then when you get
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to what's wrong and that list you can sort of start to to um to to toss or fix those as needed
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But regular family meetings are essential because family meetings are when you're going to continue to talk about what's right, what's wrong and what's mediocre
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Because those lists should be evolving all the time. What's right and what's working right now may not be what's right and what's working six months from now
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So regular family meetings is how you keep your family on track
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In our house, attendance is mandatory. We have at least once a month, if not weekly
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There were times in my family where the list of what's wrong with your family was far longer than the list of what's right with your family
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So family meetings happened on a weekly basis. Everybody gets a voice in the meeting with no condemnation
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Children need to feel safe to voice their opinions even when they're unpopular
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So in a family meeting, you're allowed to say how you feel without getting in trouble
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or being made to feel less than because you feel that way
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The family meeting is the time to say, I don't know who keeps using my brush, but I don't appreciate it
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no one says well you shouldn't leave your brush out on the counter no that's
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not the point you're allowed to say it and you're allowed to feel it and no
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one's allowed to judge you for it resist the urge to make the family meeting a
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super elaborate affair you can have a family meeting around the table you can
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have a family meeting while you eat dinner you can have a family meeting while you're all doing the dishes together don't think you have to have
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these great snacks and everybody needs hot chocolate with little snowflakes on top or
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anything like that it's just it's a simple family meeting um we already talked about we want to our
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those are evolving list of what's working what's not and what's okay so we we just keep revisiting
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them so is taco tuesday still working okay great um oh no it's not we need to move our family meal
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to Friday okay great let's do that let's have yes to Friday whatever so excuse me anyone in my family
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can call a family meeting anytime they need assistance with something and they don't know
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how to fix it if something's moved from the what's right to the what's wrong list they um
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they can call a family meeting to say this isn't working for me anymore and then if it's
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working for everybody else we can brainstorm ideas to make it work for
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that person. If it's not working for everybody else either then that's a
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great time to say hey you know what that's not working for us anymore let's move that over to the to the what's wrong with our family and toss it. So
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they can call a family meeting anytime and attendance is mandatory but we also
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have to be cognizant of people's varying schedules so they can say in the morning
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we need I need to call a family meeting and then you can sort of fit it into
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your family calendar and have the family meeting when everyone could be there
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all right so we're rebooting our family we have our evolving list we're having
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family meetings we need to remember to keep it simple simple activities and
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traditions that you can complete and do regularly will beat elaborately planned ones that never get
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achieved. This happens to me every holiday. I have these grandiose ideas of what the holiday should
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look like and they never come to fruition because I never have enough time. So I discovered as my
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children grew older that some of the traditions I had just kind of thrown in there so that we were
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doing something, and I thought that's what families should be doing, are some of their
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favorite traditions now. One New Year's Eve, I could not think of, we weren't going out
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because I have a child with autism. He hates, he hates fireworks and things like that. So we
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never go out and we didn't have a whole lot of friends around that we're doing. We didn't have
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a whole lot of friends around that we could do stuff with so I came up with
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um and they were old enough to want to stay up till midnight to see the ball drop so I said okay oh we'll just fondue and we'll eat dinner while we wait for
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the ball to drop and then then we can go to bed and so we have done that for
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years now but that was not a elaborately planned like I didn't plan this huge oh
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we got these Japanese plates and blah blah blah because we fondueing no we have paper plates and it all thrown on a plate and we all just sit around the coffee table but it is one it hands down it not only one of my
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children's favorite traditions but it's one of mine as well so think of this you're looking for
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quality time not quantity so kids remember the um kids remember the small things they remember
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that you took the time to do something with them on a consistent basis so they always felt loved
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and and appreciated and validated because you took the time to um to make them feel that way
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so showing up for their events is one thing you can do that will really enhance your family you
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know oh kids look out for their parents every time whether it's a church event
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whether they're doing it with their Cub Scouts or Girl Scouts or whatever just
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make an effort to show up to whatever they're doing and then you will you will
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build those memories those small tiny things add up to big memories as they
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get as they get bigger so that also helps enhance the cohesiveness of the
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family because if it's important to them it should be important to you and it should be important to
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the family so when madison my daughter performs the family goes and logan doesn't have to you know
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watch the entire ballet because let's face it you're a teenage boy the entire ballet is super
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boring for you he just has to look up when his sister is dancing and she knows that we're out
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there watching her and she knows that he is going to watch when when she's up
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there excuse me again so those little things add up to big memories again I'm
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gonna reiterate this don't compare someone's highlight reel aka fake book to your life because they're showing you all the good things and they're not
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showing you all the hard work too. So let's talk about traditions. Why are
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traditions important for your family? Traditions give you fun memories that get you through the tough times. When things aren't going quite so well
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traditions remind you that you are a family and that you have prior memories
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to go together. So traditions help us get through the tough autism times because they remind us that
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they're just a blip in the road. That we we are a family and that we have these fun things we do
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together that are unique to us and so we're a team and traditions help remind us that we're a team
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and that we're all going to get through this. They, you know, we've already talked about
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they bond you together. They make your family, they make your family, your family
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And that helps you, that helps. That's the glue that helps hold you all together forever
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because no one else is going to have those traditions. Again, simple traditions always trump
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elaborately planned ones that you're never going to get done. So a simple tradition at the holidays could be going out to see the Christmas lights
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A simple tradition for us is to go on a manger hunt
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And we just, we point out, oh, there's a nativity and there's a nativity and there's a nativity
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It gives the kids something to look for. So they don't get bored just, you know, seeing all the lights and all that
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So it's a fun tradition we've been doing for years. but it's just it's our tradition so we just we do it it just makes us us and then on really
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in difficult times we can say oh my gosh you remember that year we went on a manger hunt
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and we decided we were going to jump out and take a picture with every manger totally my idea was not
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my brightest day ever but we were going to take a picture with every manger and so Logan jumped out
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and mom didn't have the car in park yet so he sort of rolled and it was so super crazy and it was and
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we all start laughing because it was you know it was funny well it's funny now but um so you know
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it sort of helps you get through those tough times a mantra in my house is that someday we're
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gonna laugh about this and so traditions have taught to my children that we're in
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this together and so it may not be funny now but it's gonna be funny later so we
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just got to kind of you know make it through we're gonna have fun memories
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but we're also gonna have tough days but we're still we're a team and we're in
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this together and traditions sort of glue all that together for your family
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So just like traditions are important because they give your family fun memories that are unique to your family
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So it sort of makes your family, you know, your family. Communication is really, really important, too
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Your spouse or your partner is not a mind reader. Your children aren't mind readers either, and neither are you
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So it's the earlier you can open up the pathways to communication, the better
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If you do this when your kids are young, then they're still going to talk to you when they're teenagers and older
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My daughter said to me recently, excuse me, mom, when the kid reaches 16 or 17, now's not the time to decide you want to talk to them
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You should have been doing that the whole time. and she was she was spot on you have to listen when little kids tell you what they deem to be
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super important stuff like the snail went across the sidewalk and you have to be excited to listen
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to it because it's important to them i have written across my planner if it's important to
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them it's important to me and so by making them feel important and validated then they want
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to share with me their thoughts and feelings, you know, as even though I'm their mom
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So communication is essential to a good family. It is probably the hardest aspect for me of a family out of all of them
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So we do a couple things. My family's not big talkers. so sometimes when things are bothering them they um they're not going to talk about it
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so we have a um and then sometimes misunderstandings can happen and all that because they just didn't
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relay their plans or feelings or whatever um or they didn't know the family was going here so they
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made plans for something else or you didn't know they had an event and so to the last minute
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But what has worked for my family is to have a group chat
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We have all of us have smartphones in the family because I have older children, teenagers
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And so they go off by themselves, which means that they need to have a phone so that they can call me if they need me
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If they get into a situation, they need me to come pick them up or if they just they need to, you know, call and check in, whatever
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So we all have smartphones. So we have a group chat that everybody's in
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my husband, myself, both kids. Okay, we also have a group chat on Facebook Messenger because sometimes
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Messenger is better because you can see who's seeing the message if that makes sense. It's
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easier to see like if I send a message to Madison on Facebook I can see that she seen it whereas if I send it via well Madison and I both have iPhones so I can see that she read it But if I send a message to Logan on his Android I can tell if he read it
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So on Facebook, if I absolutely need to be sure he has seen it, I'll send him a Facebook message
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some sort of group chat. Now I mentioned Facebook Messenger because they also have now the messenger
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for kids. So even if you have small kids that have a tablet or whatever, they can, um
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they can you can do a family chat so that everybody's in there
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messaging texting things like that we have a group text and then I have a a
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text with each child individually and so I have found that it is easier for them
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to tell me things through text than it is sometimes just verbally if we're at an
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event and they're ready to go because their anxiety is high or it's too loud or someone sat
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next to them that's heavily perfumed whatever they can text me across the room to tell me that
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that you know we need to make adjustments so have some sort of group chat with just the family
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so that you can you can say things in there before you forget I make the chat a mixture of serious
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Hey mom, I have cracker practice next Tuesday from 6 to 11 and I have some silly in there
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Like the meme with the organ trail and the dinosaurs on it that said I died of dysentery and velociraptors
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So, you know, you just throw some silly in there. Everybody laughs
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And then you also use it for some serious. So it doesn't always have to be serious
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it's just sort of a conversation between all of you and the family but you're not all in the same
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room. I have a whiteboard up so that people can leave notes if they've said it in the text or if
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we're out of toilet paper or you know they realize that Taco Tuesday is coming up and
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And we don't have any taco stuff. That's a great place to just sort of jot it up there
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And so everyone can see it. It's also a great place to put like your work schedule
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Or you know your husband's work schedule. So the kids know it
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Or ours says a couple things. It says my work schedule. It says my husband's work schedule
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It says the dance schedule. And it says the therapy schedule. so that everybody knows what's going on
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It sort of acts like the family calendar at the house. And a family calendar is essential
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We use on our smartphones the Google Calendar so that everyone can add to it
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And then if you're out and about and about to make some sort of appointment
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you can see at a glance if anybody else has a conflict with it
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So I have Google Calendar on my phone as does everybody else so we can sort of see that
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But we also have the whiteboard up so that people can leave, you know, random notes
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And sometimes silly notes get on there. And sometimes it's the family Bible verse for the week
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And then sometimes it's a reminder of whose laundry day is when
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It's just a great whiteboard that allows us to keep communication open
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So we review the calendar at family meetings and while we're reviewing it we
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add in any activities that we want to do together as a family and we purposely
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schedule family time before it gets filled up. I purposely schedule one day a
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week when my family is going to eat around the table together and we're
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going to eat a meal and sometimes we're gonna play a game, sometimes we just talk
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a lot sometimes we watch a show together you know but there's one day a week that we sit down as a
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family and break bread and then do whatever some days all we do is eat because everybody has homework
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or whatever to do as well but there's always that one day they know we're going to eat together
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so that gets added into the family calendar and that's an unbreakable appointment i don't we don't
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break those appointments because you know Susie down the street wants to go to the park
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Family time is just as important as any other appointment that we have so we we schedule family
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time in there and then we decide there are some family activities we want to do together
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Um do we want to go on this this ranger led hike together? Do we want to go to this event or that
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event we decide as a family if we want to go or if we want to pass so that
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happens at the family meetings as well but because it's on the family calendar
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when we're out we can see it on our phones before we make other appointments
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or or we're running late or whatever we know what's happening that day but
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family time never gets rescheduled unless someone is sick or dying or you know in jail which is never
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happened so i hope that gave you some great ideas on how to reboot your family if you happen to be
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to be going down the um down the wrong path or you just want to make your family better
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I have found that in probably 80% of the time, people think their families are far worse than their families actually are
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And that's why we start at the beginning with the what works, what doesn't, and what's just, yeah
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Because they'll find out that what's working vastly outnumbers what isn't. And so their families are pretty awesome
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So if you're putting any kind of effort into your family, it's probably pretty awesome
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And we just need to be reminded of that at times. Special needs families like I have often get the strains and stress of therapy, the special needs
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For us, it's autism and other things. And we could just get overwhelmed and think we have the worst family around
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So you probably don't. You probably have a really great family. And like I said, a great family just takes a lot of work, just like a great marriage takes a lot of work. It's not going to happen overnight and it's not going to happen by accident
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So if you are purposeful in your family time and in your family interactions, you can have a great family anytime
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So you can follow all of our adventures on my blog or on Facebook or my group on Twitter, Instagram
33:08
You can see I'm not shy about posting about my family. Even as my children have grown, I believe that sharing our struggles and sharing our successes helps other families
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So I tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly, and sometimes it can be pretty ugly
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And I have a coupon code for you at the bottom. If you go to my blog, the store on my blog, I have a rebooting family video series with workbook
33:36
30 days, you go through, I walk you through 30 days of rebooting your family
33:42
We walk, you know, step by step through, and I give you the worksheets for figuring out what's right with your family, what's wrong
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and what's mediocre and how to fix it and then we sort of go from there but um so you save 20
33:58
dollars off which makes the whole video series 15 dollars for you for taking this class if that's
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still too much and you want to take it feel free to give me a shout and we i will be happy to to
34:10
work something out with you because families are sort of my jam i like to see other other families
34:15
be awesome. I personally think my family's the most awesome, but you know, you probably think
34:22
your family's the most awesome too. So thanks for joining me today and have a great one