Whether it’s capture the flag, hide-and-seek, or just regular ol’ tag, every kid knows that when they are being chased or simply need a break from danger, they head to home base.
If they are touching the tree or standing on the towel that represents home base, no one can attack them.
It’s their chance to shout encouraging or strategic advice to their teammates.
It’s their opportunity to catch their breath for a few moments before diving back into the game.
For kids, home base represents safety.
Can the same be said of your home?
When your kids long for some encouragement, do they head home?
When your kids need to feel protected, do they veer toward your driveway?
In most families, as kids get older, they want to be home less and less.
Six-year-olds tell their parents, “I want to go home.”
Sixteen-year-olds rarely do.
It’s normal and healthy for maturing young people to spend less time at home and more time with their friends.
The life of a teenager doesn’t orbit around their parents; they feel a strong attraction toward school, sports, clubs, work, and friends.
While the parents we interviewed had busy kids, their homes were still magnetic enough that their kids wanted to do more than just grab
food and sleep there.
These young people were drawn to their homes not necessarily because they were large.
Or clean.
Or fancy.
It was because their homes had maintained the same sense of safety that home base offered in freeze tag.
In the midst of all the forces pulling parents and kids away from each other, the home kept exerting a gravitational pull that often brought family members closer to each other and to God.
Sticky Findings
It’s Important to Make Your Home a Place Where Your Kids’ Friends Feel Welcome
By far, the most dominant theme in our discussions with fifty amazing parents about their homes is that they wanted their homes to be places where both their kids and their kids’ friends felt accepted.
Whether home was a small urban condominium, a two-story house on a suburban cul-de-sac, or a large property complete with a swimming pool and fire pit, parents tried to create an environment in which children and teenagers felt welcome.
A few parents mentioned that having their kids’ friends over gave them a window into youth culture — and even their own kids’ lives — that they wouldn’t have otherwise.
As one mom with college students recalled, “Especially in middle school and high school, my best tool for understanding my kids was hearing them talk to their friends in our car or at our house.
We did anything we could to engage their world — to listen and to watch.
My husband and I began to understand which questions we could ask and which were embarrassing.”
We want our kids to understand that life done well is done in community.
— Kenton
The Power of Creating Boundaries around Technology
But creating a welcoming space for kids doesn’t mean granting kids permission to do whatever they want, whenever they want to.
A second dominant theme in our fifty parents’ descriptions of their homes is that they limit their kids’ use of technology.
These boundaries are needed because of the way young people today are marinated in media.
Let’s consider together a generation whose lives are heavily flavored by technology.
• Fifty-eight percent of this generation possess a desktop computer.
• Sixty-one percent own a laptop.
• Eighteen percent use a tablet or e-reader.
But the real king of all technology is the device in their pocket.
Almost 90 percent of this generation carry a cell phone.
When asked to describe their cell phone in one word, this generation answered, “Awesome,” “Great,” “Good,” “Love,” “Excellent,” “Useful,” and “Convenient.”
You might be thinking that some of those words don’t sound very adolescent.
Especially the words
useful and
convenient.
That’s because the generation I’m describing isn’t teenagers.
It’s adults.
Are young people avid users of technology?
You bet.
But the data suggests that while teenagers may be digital natives, we adults are fast-adapting digital immigrants.
Before we judge teenagers for their quick-texting thumbs and seemingly permanent earbuds, we adults need to put down our smartphones and think about our own media consumption.
Eighty-three percent of young people are involved in social networking.
So are 77 percent of their parents.
Among all US household types, the traditional nuclear family with two parents and children under eighteen is more likely than other household types — such as single adults or couples without children — to have cell phones and use the internet.
Often parents use this technology to improve their relationships with their kids.
After all, texting can help parents stay in touch with their children throughout the day.
Social media allows parents to take the pulse of their kids’ lifestyle choices and friendships.
But the parents we interviewed have recognized that the same technology that builds bridges can also build walls.
Kids are so focused on sharing videos online with friends five miles away that they become numb to family members sitting five feet from them.
Parents become immersed in their computers, barely noticing when their kids enter and leave the family room.
Given how technology cuts across generations, many wise parents impose limits not only on their kids but also on themselves.
Family Dinners — Magical or Mythical?
Blog posts and books tout the benefits of family dinners.
Are regular family dinners part of a magical formula that can bring harmony and happiness to your home?
The best answer from research is, Sort of.
Kids who have dinner with their families seem to make better choices and avoid disorders and high-risk behaviors including depression, delinquency, and drug and alcohol use.
But when researchers took into account other differences between families who have dinner together and those who don’t (such as differences in overall relationship quality, parental monitoring, and shared activities), the effects of family dinners diminished drastically.
We always made sure that no matter where we’ve lived, we’ve had a big enough table for all of us to gather around and eat.
The table is the place where lots of important conversations happen, not just around dinner but at breakfast or lunch or throughout the day.
— Leticia
In other words, the parents who value family dinners seem also to build healthy and caring bonds with their kids in a host of other ways.
Family dinner conversations are a bright light in these parents’ relationships with their children, but they are only one star
in a constellation of connections that already shines brightly.
So while dinner is a natural opportunity for families to communicate, it’s not the secret sauce of Sticky Faith families.
The ongoing involvement and conversation between parents and kids is what matters most, whether or not it happens over a tablecloth.
I wish we had eaten meals every night together when our kids were younger.
Now that our kids are teenagers, they are all going different directions in the evening.
I wish we had taken advantage of those early years when our kids weren’t as busy.
— Spencer
Sticky Ideas
Actually Being Home
Parents committed to building enduring faith through their homes often start with a simple, basic step.
They regularly choose to be at home with their kids.
For parents to slash activities from their own schedules is certainly a challenge.
But many families find that the need to trim activities from their kids’ schedules is an even larger barrier to time at home together.
Many families create policies that state how many sports and clubs their kids can participate in at any one time.
(Generally it was one or two.)
To avoid year-round busyness, others designate certain seasons, such as summer or winter, as sports-free months in their homes.
As one mom described, “Six or seven years ago we eliminated most activities for the kids during the winter.
From November to March is our time to be home, eat meals together, and do fun things at night and on weekends.
That was probably the smartest choice we ever made as parents.
The rest of the year, our family feels somewhat divided and fractured by multiple kids and multiple activities, but winter is our time to enjoy being together.”
Your Family
• How does your family schedule help or hinder the relational quality of your home life?
• What might you be able to trim from your schedule or your kids’ schedules to help your family be home together more?
Facebook Friends
At the time that we interviewed parents, Facebook was the leading social media site among teenagers.
Parents commonly mentioned that their kids are allowed to have a Facebook account only if the parents are allowed to be their kids’ “friends” and are thus granted access to their kids’ posts.
Some parents require password access to all social media accounts so their kids know that their online lives can’t be hidden from Mom and Dad’s occasional check-ins.
Many parents promise their kids that they won’t post directly on their kids’ pages.
(There are few embarrassments greater than Mom chiming in about your friends’ clothing choices.)
Parents want to read, not comment.
If their kids are posting publicly, they believe that responsible parenting includes scanning their comments, pictures, and “likes” as yet one more way of staying informed.
Your Family
• What rules do you have for your kids’ use of social media?
• How would monitoring your kids’ posts affect your parenting and your relationship with your child?
Cell Phone Contract
Dan and Denise’s fourteen-year-old son has two cell phone contracts: one with his cell phone carrier and one with them.
In order to clarify their family’s cell phone expectations and protocol, Dan and Denise printed the following guidelines and had their son sign them and post them in his room.
1.
It is our phone.
We bought it.
We pay for it.
We are loaning it to you.
Aren’t we great?
2.
We will always know the password.
3.
If it rings, answer it.
Say hello and use good manners.
Never ignore a phone call if the screen reads “Mom” or “Dad.”
4.
Hand the phone to one of your parents before bed every night.
5.
If it falls into the toilet, smashes on the ground, or vanishes into thin air, you are responsible for the replacement costs or repairs.
6.
Put it away in public (for example, in church, in restaurants, in movie theaters, wherever you are with other people).
You are not rude; do not allow your phone to change that.
We’ve helped our family relationships by not allowing computers or TVs in our kids’ rooms.
Wherever the TV or computer is, our kids will be.
So if it’s not in their bedrooms, our family interacts with each other more.
— Travis
7.
Do not use your phone to lie to, fool, or deceive another human being.
Do not involve yourself in conversations that are hurtful to others.
Be a good friend first.
8.
Do not text, email, or say anything through this device you would not say in person.
9.
No porn.
Nothing you wouldn’t want your mother to see.
10.
Do not send or receive pictures of your private parts or anyone else’s private parts.
Don’t laugh.
Despite your intelligence, someday you might be tempted to do this.
It is risky and could ruin your life.
11.
Take pictures, but don’t forget to live your experiences.
Keep your eyes up.
See the world happening around you.
Stare out a window.
Listen to the birds.
Take a walk.
12.
Leave your phone home sometimes and be okay with that decision.
Learn to live without it.
13.
Download music that is new or classic or different from what your peers listen to.
Your generation has access to music like never before in history.
Take advantage of that gift.
Expand your horizons.
14.
Play a game with words or puzzles or brainteasers every now and then.
15.
You will mess up.
We will take away your phone.
We will sit down and talk about it.
We will start over again.
We will always be learning.
We are on your team.
We are in this together.
Your Family
• What clear rules do you have for cell phone usage in your family?
• After reading this list of guidelines, are there any rules you’d like to add?
The Phone Basket
“Can you please put your phone away so I can talk to you?”
That was a request that Jay and Stacey commonly had to make of their two teenage daughters.
Truth be told, Jay and Stacey’s daughters weren’t the only ones who spent more time staring at a screen than engaging with other family members.
As parents juggling multiple work, church, and family responsibilities, Jay and Stacey would often let their own “quick checks” of their phones after dinner expand into an evening focused more on communicating with friends across the country than on talking with family across the dining room table.
Our home is a refuge to us and to others.
We open our doors to family, friends, and our church’s youth group.
We want our house to be
the place.
— Rolf
So Jay and Stacey created one simple rule in their home: when you walk into the house, you put your phone in a basket in the living room.
This is true not just for the four who live there but also for friends who visit.
Initially the phone basket prompted a fair amount of complaining and eye rolling from their teenagers.
But the girls and
their friends have ended up liking it.
Instead of sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the same room staring at their phones, they all look each other in the eye now and talk to each other.
While not directly related to Sticky Faith at home, here’s an interesting cell phone corollary: If you or other family members or friends are tempted to check phones while out at a restaurant, you might want to follow my brother’s policy.
When he goes out to eat with friends, they all put their cell phones in a stack on the table.
If anyone reaches for their phone before the bill comes, that person has to cover the entire group’s bill.
Your Family
• How, if at all, do cell phones affect your family’s face-to-face communication?
• If you don’t like your answer to the previous question, what boundaries might you want to put into place to improve your family relationships?
Stocking the Fridge
In describing the glue that makes their homes a social hub for their kids and their kids’ friends, multiple families pointed to the power of food.
As one dad summarized, “If we stock our fridge and cupboard, kids come over a lot.
It gets pricey, but it’s worth it.”
Some parents involve their kids in planning the food they want to have for guests.
That way the kids learn more about hospitality and food budgeting, while choosing snacks that reflect the vibe they want to create for their friends.
Your Family
• What role, if any, do snacks play in how your kids and your kids’ friends feel about spending time at your house?
• How can you involve your kids in budgeting for and choosing the food they want to offer to their friends?
Homework Room
For many families, homework time means that everyone heads to their room and ignores everybody else.
Shami wanted something different for her family.
She had a vision of homework time being something that brought family members together instead of sending them to separate corners of the house.
So she turned her home office into a homework room.
She
still has a desk there, but by clustering two additional desks on one side of the room, Shami has given her daughter and her husband their own workspace also.
Now when her daughter is studying and Shami and her husband are at their computers, the three of them are all in the same room working together.
What if my child doesn’t want to keep their room clean?
In the midst of our discussions with Sticky Faith parents about their kids’ bedrooms, two facts became clear.
First, the state of kids’ bedrooms is a main source of conflict and stress in a family’s home.
Second, amazing parents who show great unanimity in the majority of parenting practices show great disagreement in their views about how to respond to their kids’ cluttered rooms.
Some believe that raising responsible kids means teaching them how to steward their own belongings and space.
Beds need to be made, desk surfaces need to be clean, and clothes need to be put away.
Other parents feel that in the midst of all the potential conflict they could have with their kids, clean rooms just aren’t all that important.
Kids need to do regular chores to help keep the common areas of the house clean, but their room is their own space.
Other than a monthly thorough Saturday cleaning, they can keep it as they want.
Since there was no trend in parents’ policies about clean bedrooms, it’s challenging for us to make specific recommendations to you.
But we can invite you to reflect on the following questions.
• How can you make sure that you and your spouse are sending consistent messages to your kids about their rooms?
• How do your background and your own issues (for example, your discomfort with clutter, your tendency toward hoarding) taint how you interact with your kids about their rooms?
• If messy or dirty bedrooms are causing conflict in your home, is it worth the fight to have the kids clean them?
Why or why not?
Your Family
• How do your kids’ homework habits affect your family communication and time together?
• What creative use of your house could make homework a time that unites you instead of separates you?
Faith in Every Room
As followers of Jesus, Gloria and Edgar felt that their house should reflect their faith.
More specific, their goal was that in every room there would be at least a memento or book that reminded their family, as well as others visiting, of their commitment to Christ.
So near the doorway in their living room they placed a small painting that spoke of the beauty of God’s creation.
Next to the stove in their kitchen was a rock with a cross carved on it.
Each of their kids got to choose one item for their bedroom that reflected their faith, whether it was a single book or a large inspirational poster.
Without being overwhelming or imposing, Christ-centered art and messages that Edgar and Gloria have placed in their home are an external expression of their internal faith.
Your Family
• What signs of your faith are already visible in your house?
• Are there any changes you’d like to make in your home decor to more clearly reflect your commitment to Jesus?
The Praying Chair
Tired of the blank looks they received when they asked their kids, “Who wants to pray for dinner?”
Rodney and Jackie designated a “praying chair” at their kitchen table.
Whoever sits at that chair gets to pray for the meal.
Sometimes when the kids set the table, one of them will put themselves in the praying chair.
If the parents set the table, they usually reserve the chair for one of the kids who hasn’t prayed in a while.
Rodney and Jackie’s hope is that by taking turns praying for the meal, their kids will feel more comfortable praying aloud, whether or not food is involved.
Your Family
• What rituals do you follow in praying for your meals?
• How are your kids involved in those rituals?
• What are your kids learning about prayer from the way you or they pray for meals?
The Special Plates
When Sal and Karen’s two daughters were in elementary school, each girl had a school assignment requiring them to color on a white ceramic plate and then heat the plate in a pottery kiln to make their art masterpiece permanent.
Over the years, the girls have given Sal and Karen similar plates for Father’s Day and Mother’s Day to commemorate how much they appreciate them as parents.
Since all four family members now have their own special plates, Sal and Karen decided to put them to good use.
Every night at dinner, one family member gets to eat off their special plate.
If it’s April’s turn to use her special plate, April gets to say the blessing for the meal, and then sometime during dinner, each member of the family shares something special they see in April.
April’s sister, Leah, might comment that she appreciates that April likes to spend time with her or lets her borrow her clothes.
Sal and Karen
might recollect a positive character quality they have seen April demonstrate, like how she was compassionate to the girl who was being bullied at school or how she worked very hard on her science project.
Sal likes to affirm the way his daughters are good sisters to each other, so he might comment on the way April cheered up Leah after a disappointing swim meet or test score.
If a guest is staying for dinner, often the guest will receive a special plate, which has prompted some great conversation and encouragement.
Sal is quick to confess that their family is far from perfect at this practice.
He admits, “Some nights the girls have just been bickering with each other and then have to say something kind about each other.
While that’s a bit awkward, overall the special plates have helped create a positive and uplifting tone at our meals.
Our girls, now fourteen and seventeen, are the best of friends, something their school friends find astounding.”
Your Family
• How affirming are your dinner conversations?
• Whether it’s a special plate every night or a special cup once a week, what could you do to help your family regularly practice affirming each other?
Conversation Couch
Joyce felt that instead of being a hub of refuge and relationship, her house was more of a pit stop for her teenagers to grab a few meals and a few hours of sleep.
As an interior designer, she is aware of the messages that a space communicates, and she decided to designate a special place in her house for family conversation.
She and her husband declared a couch in the living room, which was removed from the foot traffic between the kitchen and the bedrooms, as their “conversation couch.”
Joyce explained to her kids that if they ever wanted a more focused chat with either parent, they could ask them to come to that couch.
And if the parents wanted that kind of talk with their kids, they could invite
them there as well.
Of course, conversations could happen anywhere in the house.
And the couch is used every day for purposes other than deep conversation.
But Joyce has found that having a few feet of cushions appointed for conversation is a catalyst for family discussions that might not happen otherwise.
Your Family
• Where do conversations tend to happen in your house?
• How, if at all, would designating a special place for family discussions enhance your relationships?
Bible Wall
When Keyanna and Delonte have felt like they were drowning in life’s challenges, Scripture has often been their lifesaver.
Because of the way they treasure God’s Word, Keyanna and Delonte have created a Bible wall in their kitchen to help their elementary-age sons appreciate particular passages.
Every week, they post the Scripture memory verse from their church’s children’s ministry on that wall to help all four family members memorize it.
If one of their boys is facing a certain struggle, Keyanna or Delonte will share a relevant passage with him and hang it on the wall.
The Bible wall not only gives the family hope for how God will help them in the future; it reminds them of the way God has fulfilled his promises for them already.
I never read the Bible as much as I wish I had with my kids.
We talk about it every once in a while, but I wish it was more a part of our daily lives.
— Rick
Your Family
• What role does Scripture memorization play in your family’s faith journey?
• How could a wall, corner, or bulletin board in your home become a tool that stimulates your family’s appreciation for God’s Word?
Christmas Card Dinner Prayers
Beth wanted her kids to experience the joy of praying for others’ needs.
Yet if Beth were honest, it was hard enough for her to keep track of her own friends’ needs, let alone try to involve her three kids in praying for others, especially on a regular basis.
Beth knew she needed a system that is fun, easy, and in sync with the rhythms of their home.
So last January, she stacked the Christmas cards her family had received the month prior in a basket next to the kitchen table.
Every night before dinner, one of her kids reaches in the basket and chooses a card.
In addition to blessing the food, her family also prays for the person or family who sent them the Christmas card.
Through one basket and a bit of forethought, Beth has found a great way to bring the power of Christmas and prayer to her dinner table throughout the year.
Your Family
• What rhythms does your family have to help you pray for others outside of your family?
• Like Beth, what system could you use (perhaps one that involves visual prompts and is tied to a regular meal or bedtime routine) to help your family remember to pray for friends, other families, and ministries?
Seeing the World — Literally
Ramon and Elisabeth wanted to help their three elementary-age children realize that the world is much bigger than their little corner of it.
So they have hung a large world map on the wall parallel to their dining room table.
When world events come up in family conversations, Ramon and Elisabeth can show their kids where those events occurred.
When guests mention a place they’ve visited or a place where they’ve served on a mission trip, Ramon and Elisabeth can point to those locations on the map.
While their
kids haven’t yet traveled outside of the US, they have talked about, visualized, and prayed for nations on every continent.
Your Family
• In what ways do the items in your home help expand your kids’ view of the world and God’s work in it?
• As you think about where you spend the most time in your home with your kids (likely your kitchen, family room, or dining room), what visual cues could help stretch your family’s faith and prayer life?
Our Family’s Steps toward Sticky Faith
Take a few moments on your own, or with your spouse, your friends, or your small group, to reflect on some potential next steps toward Sticky Faith.
Sticky Findings
On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being “we stink at this” and 5 being “we rock at this”), rate your family on the research findings presented in this chapter.
1|
Our home is a place where our kids and their friends feel welcome.
2|
I limit my kids’ use of technology at home.
3|
I limit my own use of technology at home.
4|
We have quality family conversations in our home, whether at dinner or at other times.
Sticky Ideas
1|
In what ways does your home strengthen your kids’ relationships with you and with God?
2|
Given your ranking of the findings in the previous section, as well as the ideas you’ve read in this chapter, what one or two changes might you want to make in your family?
3|
What can you do in the next few weeks or month to move toward these changes?
