In the mentorships I host for our online platform at Truth Becomes Her, we spend a lot of time talking about family dynamics, the individual and collective relationships, and how we can deepen our connection to God and to each other. 

I want to dive in today and work through one of the most essential components of parenting with intention and purpose, and that is building a culture inside your home that invites meaningful contributions from each family member.

Today is about how to lead your family with a spirit of collaboration.  

To collaborate means to “work with another or others." To co-labor. 

Maybe when you hear that word collaborate, the first place your brain goes to is school or to your place of business. We’ve all been given some sort project or task to complete that required us to team up with another person or a group of people to accomplish it, and maybe those situations went well for you in the past.

Or maybe you have kind of a bad taste in your mouth because one (or several) of your “team members” didn’t show up in the way you expected, or at all, and you were left to do most of the work.

Or maybe you were the person who was never really sure how to add value in those situations so you were content to just sit back and allow others to carry the load.

Or maybe it was something else. Whatever happened, it no doubt created tension and shifted the effectiveness of the team to complete the work. The work probably got done, but was it optimum, was it the most efficient and best use of everyone’s gifts and the ways they could have contributed? 

These are all important questions to ask as we think about ways to invite the members of our family team to work together and work well with each other. 

When we think about the world and most of its current structures and systems related to things like business, politics, religion or others, they all contain some sort of organizational hierarchy: a tower of sorts that revolves around power, and order, and competition. 

If you’ve ever found yourself in the work environment feeling anxious or fearful about what needs to be done…

Maybe you’ve struggled to feel welcome or comfortable inside a group or whether or not your own voice or ideas would be heard because of the others who seemed to be jockeying for position or trying to one up each other. 

Maybe you struggled to feel like you had a seat at the table. 

That’s what I want to focus on today. If we want to create a culture in our families of love and teamwork, and do it from a place of real authenticity, it’s going to involve helping everybody on your family team recognize that we are naturally inclined to work around a table, not a tower. 

Whether you're a girl mom or mentor, you are a leader, and a good leader understands the need to ground on the fact that no matter what group or team we find ourselves leading, each individual person or team member (no matter who they are) has something valuable to offer.

Every person has something of value they bring to the table, and an effective leader gathers everyone around that table to co-labor. 

In Romans 12:4-5, Paul tells us “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

I’m sure we’ve all heard that before and if you’re like me maybe you’ve mostly viewed that idea through the lens of the body of Christ - all of us make up one body and we each have functions and work to do as part of the whole. I’ll admit for a long time I never really viewed that verse through the family lens - meaning our individual family team is part of the body of Christ, and it is its own unit of individuals that make up Team Weidemann, and each member was strategically placed by God inside our family so that His will and purposes will be realized by the way we live, grow, and work together. 

Here’s a really sweet, simple example. A little while back, Rooney tried to help me when I lost my contact lens. She and I had just left the house and I was driving us somewhere and I must have rubbed my eye while I was driving and I either got my contact lost up inside the black hole of my eyelid or it had fallen out of my eye altogether. I was immediately flustered because I was operating heavy machinery and couldn’t see, and as soon as I verbalized the problem, as soon as the words “ahh my contact is stuck up in my eye” were out of my mouth, there she was - my sweet girl was right there to offer up possible solutions to my problem. 

From the backseat:

“Mom, why don’t you close your eye and try to move your finger on your lid to see if it’s in there?” 

“Hey Mama, you could maybe pull over and get out of the car and jump up and down to see if you can knock it loose. Where can we stop?”

“How about if you give me your water bottle I can squirt some water in there and see if we can rinse it out?”

Now I could have easily told her to be quiet or that I didn’t need her help, but instead I thought in that moment about who she is and what she was trying to do. 

She is someone who cares about me.

She didn’t dismiss or ignore that I was having a problem. 

She tried to be helpful by offering several solutions that she could think of. 

It’s such a simple example, but a great illustration of what our connection as family should be: we are a team, in all things and in every way. No matter what happens, whatever is going on in our lives, we are here to help and support each other.

No matter how simple or complex the problem is, when we face a problem or challenge, we co-labor. We work together. 

A lot of the time, we can squash our kids’ contributions if we’re in a hurry or have too much going on. Teaching them that collaboration means working with each other is vital to them learning to believe that they are valued for who they are and what they have to contribute. 

This is how we grow inside our kids a strong sense of purpose. We invite them to sit across from us at the table and engage in challenges so they can find out how they bring value. No matter if you are planning a birthday party, setting homework goals, trying to figure out how much screen time is too much screen time, or dealing with heartache when tragedy strikes, the posture of working together is the approach that will show them that partnering with others is how we grow, it’s how we stretch, and it’s how we get things done. 

Most importantly, collaboration reduces any sense of hierarchy, instead cultivating a culture of mutual respect where each person is a contributing member of the team. 

They will learn to express their ideas because their ideas are welcomed, respected, and highly valued. 

That’s my challenge to you as you head into this season of your leadership. We are going to put this into practice. Find some simple ways to introduce this table vs. tower approach to working together (around your actual table is a great place to start) and show your girl that you value the unique expression of God’s creativity she is and the beautiful ways she can lend that creativity when situations arise. 

Ephesians 4:16 says

From whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Have an awesome day!

Erin

***If you're looking for ways to deepen your connection with your girl and help her learn the value of collaboration, perseverance, and teamwork, be sure to check out my free video series, 3 Keys to Unlocking Her True Potential. Click here to watch.