MY KIND OF FAMILY
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  • Home
  • About
    • About Shannon Rhodes
    • About My Kind of Family
    • Contact
  • Books
    • Let's Do Something Together
    • Adventures in Sock Land
    • The U.N.I.Q.U.E. Series
    • Understand How You Feel
    • Never Doubt You're Loved
  • Purchase
  • Smile
  • Resources
    • Worksheets
    • How To Customize Your Book

What Makes a Family? An exercise in communication.

8/20/2014

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I asked friends and family to give me three virtues that make a family.  Here is what I received: 
  • Patience
  • Respect (2)
  • Commitment
  • Quality Time
  • Love (9)
  • Loyalty (2)
  • Trust (4)
  • Kindness 
  • Joyfulness
  • Support​
  • Laughter
  • Compassion
  • Safe Haven
  • Understanding
  • Forgiveness (2)
  • Unending
  • Reliability
  • Integrity
  • Perseverance
  • Consistency


The first and foremost key to any relationship is communication. Understanding each other is extremely important. You don't have to agree but you do have to understand WHAT the person is saying and WHAT they say they feel.

Understanding the WHY is often very difficult.  I've learned that WHY someone feels something can sometime be tied back to past relationships, history or just previous experience telling you one thing and your partner another. 

When you focus on the WHAT, you can break down current feelings and begin to understand the built in expectations that your partner might have. 

Start with an easy exercise. List the top three virtues you feel make a family. Ask your partner to do the same. Do they match? If they don't it might help explain where frustrations begin.  If consistency is #1 on your list, yet it's 5th or 6th on your partners list that might explain why you get easily frustrated when your partner changes things or doesn't do things this week similar to how they did them last week. 

Try this exercise between parents, a parent and a child or with any relationship you have within your family, immediate and extended. Try asking the question and let me know if you find out anything interesting! 


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Sometimes... when you lose, you win!

8/17/2014

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We decided this summer to coach my daughters basketball team. A team of 4-5 year olds, 8 boys, 2 girls and half of them had never played in a game before. 

The sports league has a smart way of helping the kids learn who to guard. They use colored wristbands. The order of the colors corresponds with skill. This helps match up kids so those who haven't played have a chance to learn vs. be run over by a good player. 

We made it to the championship game! Our kids did great. In the final game, we set our wristbands before our players hit the court. The other team sees our players and change their kids bands.  The second quarter begins and this happens again. We asked why they were changing the bands when they are supposed to be equated to skill level? The other coach responds, we do it by height because that equates to skill. 

Ohhhh no. Not a good thing to say to my 5'3" Division 1 collegiate basketball partner coach!  As she shares her opinion in opposition, another coach on the other team walks out to the court to start an argument. 

We looked at them, shrugged our shoulders and proceeded to play the game. This season, every single one of our kids had a chance to touch the ball, to bring it down the court, and attempt to pass and shoot. Two of their "tall" kids racked up 33 points to win the game. 

But winning for me... was when each one of the parents said to us, "My child had a great time", "Thank you for letting my child play", "Thank you for teaching my child". At 4-5 years old, I assure you... It's not about winning.  It's more about learning skills you can use in sports and life in the future. Sometimes you might loose the game, but you win a life lesson!
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Don't take things personally... yeah right.

7/22/2014

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This is one of the absolute hardest things for me to do. I was grateful to find the book, "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz, it opens up the opportunity to remind me why it's important to not take things personal! I've read it probably half a dozen times and every time it sticks for a few months then I slide back into Ego. 

The humanistic side of us makes it difficult to deal in a world where so much is thrown at us daily. It's just another reminder to give things to God and let them go! But yet another thing that's hard to do! 

What do you do to not take things personally?
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    Shannon

    My blog is about what I've learned, my life, being a mom, foster and adoption and what it's like to LIVE aLIVE!

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