REFLECTION/DISCUSSION GUIDE
by Rev. Pat Hoertdoerfer
Children, Family, and Intergenerational Programs Director
Lifespan Faith Development, UUA

Putting Family First:
Successful Strategies for Reclaiming Family Life in a Hurry-Up World
By William Doherty and Barbara Carlson
New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2002
ISBN 0-8050-6838-4, 175 pages

As a well-intentioned parent do you often feel more like a recreation director and chauffeur than a loving parent and homemaker? Can you count on one hand the number of times your whole family has shared a meal together this past week or taken a family vacation together in the last five years? Is it hard to find or make time for your marriage relationship? You are not alone! When authors Doherty and Carlson perceived these loss-of-family-time trends in their own families and communities, they helped to start Putting Family First, an organization committed to helping parents reclaim family time and rebuild family connections. Reflecting the authors’ years of experience as parents and educators, this book offers a thoughtful, practical guide for finding family balance in a frenetic world.

Description
Doherty and Carlson say that they wrote this book for two reasons: because they were alarmed about how the frantic pace of contemporary American family life is eroding family closeness and depriving our children of their childhood, and because they know something about how to take back family time and make good use of it. “Today’s families are sorely lacking time for spontaneous fun and enjoyment, for talking over the day’s events and experiences, for unhurried meals, for quiet, bedtime talks, for working together on projects, for teaching and learning life skills such as cooking and gardening, for visiting extended family and friends, for attending religious services together, for participating together in community projects, and for exploring the beauty of nature. Not enough time to be a family with a rich internal and external life.”

They finished writing this book the morning of September 11, 2001, and as they state in the book’s introduction, they wondered whether anyone would care about the theme of this book.
Their immediate thoughts led to their first conclusion: everything has changed and nothing has changed. The message could not be clearer they write: family relationships are the irreplaceable core of a full human life. “It sometimes takes a personal or national tragedy to remind us of this simple truth—that family life is first. A rich family life alone is not enough … because we need strong neighborhoods, schools, communities of values and beliefs, governments, nations, and a cooperative international community. But none of these, alone or together, can substitute for family life.” Putting Family First delves into issues that lie at the heart of all family-related choices, helping us think about the roles our children play in our lives, and the roles we play in their lives.

About the authors:
Growing up in a tightly knit Irish-American, working-class family where family time was a high priority, William Doherty placed great value on meaningful time with his own family at meals, bedtime, and family vacations. He is a professor of Family Social Science and the director of the marriage and family therapy program at the University of Minnesota and cofounder of Putting Family First. His previous publications include The Intentional Family and Take Back Your Kids: Confident Parenting in Turbulent Times. Doherty has been a Unitarian Universalist for twenty-five years and one of the innovators of the First Universalist Church (Minneapolis, MN) program, Family Chalice.

Barbara Carlson is the cofounder of Putting Family First, a grassroots parents’ initiative based in Wayzata, MN that is building a community where family life is honored and celebrated as a priority. She is the mother of four children and has dedicated herself to families and children as an elementary teacher, a high-school service-learning director, and a community organizer and volunteer.

Small Group Ministry with Parents
Consider using this book in a parenting class, a parents’ support group, or a small-group ministry with parents. Review the components, defining characteristics, session format, and facilitators of small-group ministry in the context of a church community from Helen Zidowecki’s Small Group Ministry and Relational Religious Education. Use this book with your small group in at least four sessions or for as long as the group decides is valuable.

The following questions for reflection and discussion can help your group engage in meaningful interactions that touch the heart, inform the mind, inspire the spirit, and build a sense of companionship among parents.

Discussion/Reflection Questions:
1. In the first chapter the authors give their reasons why families got themselves into the problem of overscheduled kids and under-connected families.
a. Do you agree with their synthesis of reasons? Why or why not?
b. How do you assess your current family lifestyle vis-a-vis this competitive consumer culture?

2. Doherty and Carlson articulate three different ways families spend time together: “being around,” logistic talk, and connecting talk.
a. How does your family spend most of its time together?
b. What do you think about the balance between your family time and your individual time?

As you look at the Time Priorities Pyramid (page 24), do you see where your family spends most of its time together? Do your time priorities reflect your core family values? Why or why not?

3. Are family dinners a “much-loved but endangered species” in your household? What
ideas and tips from this book around family dinner rituals and memorable moments at meals will you reclaim for your family’s meal time?

4. The authors state that there are no more powerful rituals in family life than bedtime rituals. As your child(ren) matured, how have your bedtime rituals changed? What are some new ways to reclaim appropriate bedtime rituals in your home?

5. What suggestions from The Tips for Family Fun: Ideas for Hanging Out (pages 72-76),
would you like to (re)claim in your home? In your neighborhood?

6. One important principle about family rituals, especially in reclaiming family outings and vacations, is maximum participation by all family members. What was your family’s worst outing or vacation experience? What was your family’s best vacation or outing experience? What do these experiences tell you about your family time and your family values?

7. How have you tamed the “technology beast”—television, video games, CD players, computers, Internet—in your home? What strategies have worked for you in reclaiming family life in your home? What are your biggest challenges?

8. If you are part of a two-parent family, how is your parental team working in putting family first? Do you use the direct or indirect route in creating or changing family time patterns? Give an example of a successful negotiation in reclaiming family time.

9. If you are part of a single-parent family, what strategies have you used to make family time meaningful? How have you handled holidays?

10. Doherty and Carlson state that “stepfamilies must work even harder to make family life the top priority than other kinds of families.” How have you finessed rituals in your stepfamily life? How do you meet your family’s needs for time and rituals of connection?

11. Are you making time for your marriage or are you “giving your marriage to the kids?” How are you finding time for your marriage while raising children? Do any of the 12 tips on pages 148-150 work for you? Why or why not?

12. What changes are you making in your family to reclaim family time? What kind of family do you aspire to be?

13. What is the parents’ initiative, Putting Family First? Could it work in your community?
Look at the Family Chalice program. Would a similar program work in your congregation? Why or why not?