Welcome to the Weekly Rhythm!

Last week I promised you a story of one our our longest lasting rhythms.

There have been highs and lows in how we’ve utilized a TV in our home. To be honest, sometimes it serves us but there have been many times we’ve served it. Serving entertainment is never more apparent then when there’s fighting over it.

We would let the kids use the TV for screen time but the use of it wouldn’t be evenly spread across all kids. In these instances the tactic of, “Who was using it first?” doesn’t work out that well. From there, it devolves into “So and so always gets to use it and I never get to use it!”

Have you ever found yourself in that place?

This was the start of family night. It started out in January 2018 as a way of dealing with arguments but ended up becoming a night with a purpose. Here’s what I did.

There are six member of this immediate family. Once a week, one member would have their pick of activity for family night. Arranging the schedule of whose pick it was by age order, the pick would rotate every week. That’s the simple framework.

What emerged was twofold purpose. 1) This put into practice five straight weeks of preferring another member of the family over ourselves. 2) This enabled every member to be vocal about their preferences and interests.

Even though it started with the TV, it wasn’t confined there. We’ve played games, read books, listened to albums, or gone to basketball games. The beauty of this for you is that you don’t have to use my activities. This is flexible to where you can incorporate what your family already enjoys and tries to find time for into this mini-event that becomes a rhythm for your family culture.

I’ve never lived down the night I picked a documentary about cave paintings in France. However, these nights have become a shared family experience. It’s an exciting conversation every week about whose pick it is for family night. Since starting in 2018, there have been very few that we’ve missed.

For you to think about this week:

1. If you could block off one point during the week for your family, what day would work best?

2. Would any of the positive rhythms you thought of last week fit into a family night?

For you to act on this week:

1. Build on your Quality Question asking skill by finding out how your family reacts to the idea of a family night. Try a variation of, “How would a family night impact your schedule?” or “In what way would a family night be valuable for us?”

That’s it for this week! Families are busy and there’s a lot of things that demand our attention. Life does happen. Next week, I’ll share how to make family nights serve your family instead of making your family serve a specific night of the week.

Talk to you soon!

~ J.P.

PS: You’ll get to know me more as this newsletter continues. Knowing and being known is a big thing for me. Introduce yourself by replying to this e-mail (it’ll go right to me). Let me know what has and has not worked for you when it comes to rhythms.

Book Update:

Depending on how you came to this newsletter, you may or may not have heard I’ve finished the rough draft of my first book. This book expands and goes deeper into the topics you’re reading in The Weekly Rhythm.

As of this writing, the rough draft is complete. The next step is the first round of editing. This will take me a few months and honestly, I need to set a deadline for that. Hold me accountable. After this, I will announce the name of the book and plan to send it to a few advance readers for their feedback.