Telling the Family Narrative

One of the core principles of A Trinity Family is that individuals are powerful and their choices matter.

From an early age, we want to be training our kids to understand themselves as an autonomous character in a flowing narrative of life where they are interconnected with countless other characters and storylines around them.

The healthy human has the capacity to powerfully and passionately direct their own life path, while honoring, supporting, and celebrating those of others. They are people who happen to life, rather than letting life happen to them. Story is the tool which produces such people.

Every reader of a story knows what it feels like to have insight which the characters in the book are ignorant to: we know there is danger in that cave; we know the ugly old hag is actually a beautiful enchantress. We have a perspective as a reader which would almost always lead us to make better decisions than the characters in the story actually do.

By rehearsing, retelling, and reliving the stories of our own family lives, we equip ourselves and our children with just such wisdom, power, and foresight within the real-life stories we are living.

For many of us, childhood passes like a blissful, but oblivious, fog from which the real world at some point jolts us awake. It jolts us to a life more aware, but often far less happy, because we arrive at it ill-equipped to manage our own lives, unclear about where we want to be going, and disconnected from our fellow characters.

We have not learned how to understand ourselves as a character in the part of our story when the rising action is happening.

Then, the climaxes and the crises of life hit, and we are people who spend the rest of our lives trying to catch up with the story which is happening to us.

The stories of history are endlessly valuable, but it is the stewarded stories of our presently lived todays which have the greatest capacity to empower us for the stories of tomorrow.

It should be a daily practice to in multiple ways stop and review as a family the moments we’ve lived. Doing so, we get to celebrate and identify the unique strengthswhich every character in our family possesses. Children learn early what patience looks like and how they wield it. They learn what their adventurous spirit longsfor, where it gets them into trouble, and where it launches them into bliss. They also get to step back out of their stories, like a reader, trouble-shoot struggles, and navigate transitions from fresh perspective. Parents have the opportunity in this place to define the type of characters this family is putting into the world: We are a people who act in self-control. I noticed I lost control of myself this afternoon. I am sorry for the way my behavior hurt the rest of you. Please forgive me. What do you think I could do differently next time? These kinds of practices make every member of the family the hero of a story. It is a story they are living with a group of other powerful characters they trust and love. It is a story they have a sense for, a story they know the history of, and a story they are being developed to write the rest of in power and confidence.

The challenge for us as parents is to ensure we are scheduling the time not to just live life as a family, but to relive it.

Meals are the historic place where this has been done, and in my mind, the most beneficial. Fight for family meals. Fight for time as a family to stay on top of your story. As you do, you will find the character of your children developing beautifully on its own. You will find the behaviors you might otherwise fight, resolving themselves. You will find your fears for the future are in the strong and capable hands of children you trust. No one wants to live a bad story. If we can equip the next generation with the practices and perspectives to live a good one, the histories they write will be a treat indeed!