Unspoken Family Rules

In one of my classes last term, we talked about unspoken family rules and how they shape us. I was looking back at my notes and I had written that something that might be interesting to do is ask members of a family what unspoken rules they thought their family had. Even within a family, each person will still have their own perspective. A rule that one person sees and follows might not even be noticed by their brother. I thought an interesting tie could be everything we read about the personality traits based on your birth order. We read that a first born is usually likes to be in control, a second born is independent and doesn’t like to be controlled, a middle born tends to be sensitive and goes along with whatever is already established and a last born is often pampered, a procrastinator and more “wild”. With each being pretty dramatically different, it is fairly obvious how their perspectives would be different as well. An unspoken rule in my family (from my perspective) is to never eat close to dinner time especially is someone (usually me) is in the middle of making dinner. The person making dinner for everyone is putting in the time and effort to do so, so it would be rude to eat and then potentially not be hungry when dinner is finally served. I imagine from my husband’s perspective that he thinks if you’re hungry, you should eat regardless of whether dinner is currently being prepared or not. He doesn’t do this intentionally, but growing up that was okay in his family and it wasn’t in mine. This was just something we had to compromise on. If my husband is truly hungry and dinner is not ready yet, he knows that I would be okay if he ate an apple or something small, but that it would hurt my feeling if he made a full on sandwich while I slave over a hot stove. I’ve learned the importance of being flexible and realizing that we all grow up differently. We may not always see eye to eye on these unspoken rules, but with good communication we can grow to make our own family rules that stem from our individual family rules from childhood. 

Family Councils

There are great ideas from the book “Counseling with our Councils” that we are able to use to strengthen our own family councils. We learn how the leadership of our church uses councils to work together and receive counsel and guidance from our Heavenly Father. Our church is very organized and we can learn from their structure. On page 41 of the book, it says “no man is capable of judging a matter, in council, unless his own heart is pure; and that we are frequently so filled with prejudice, or have a beam in our own eye, that we are not capable of passing right decisions”. The great thing about family councils is that we can come together in a neutral setting and discuss whatever it is that needs to be discussed. Each family member is able to share their opinion as long as the other family members are open-minded, with a pure heart, and a willing to listen. On page 47, Ballard writes what a typical meeting looks like for the Quorum of the Twelve. We can follow a similar agenda in order for our family councils to go smoothly and be spiritual as well. The Quorum of the Twelve use a preplanned agenda which is then passed out to each member, they open with a prayer, they address each item on the agenda one by one and they are discussed individually. By keeping the meeting orderly, it creates a safe place to talk as a group and allows everyone to have a voice. Hopefully the agenda also keeps everyone on topic as well. By inviting the Spirit during the opening prayer, we can make decisions and treat each other with respect as Christ would have done.

On page 44 and 45, Ballard writes “while I have always been impressed by the strengths and abilities of the individual men who compose the Presidency, I have been inspired almost to the point of being overwhelmed by the powerful way they work as an exemplary council and continue to do so even when not all members of the council are fully able to function”. This powerful statement teaches us that even when not all of our family members are willing or able to council together, we are still strengthened by gathering and trying our best. The Prophets of our church are the best example to us and from them we learn so much. We a richly blessed by them.