What are the safety rules at home? Well, if you don't have these safety rules in
place, you probably have some levels of chaos going on. Watch closely and let's
get your life in order.
My wife and I, we loved to go train and and go to classes and teach and do
keynote presentations. And somewhere in our training it comes out that as we've
been raising our children that we've had rules for our home. And immediately, we
get the audience asking, "What kind of rules do you guys set for your home?"
Which is really interesting because we find there's a lot of people out there
who don't set rules for their home. And I've even been questioned by people
before who have said, "Why do you have to set rules at home?" Well to me, any space
that is not governed by some kind of guidelines is subject to chaos. Any group
of people that does not have a set of guidelines is going to go into chaos. And
so I like to talk about how to organize your home by setting some rules so that
you can have less chaos and be more productive. So for me, this matters
because as I'm attempting to put my life in order and take care of my family and
have a great marriage and love my children. If I don't have rules in place,
I could have this underlying chaos going on that just is not a good foundation to
build a family or build a business or build relationships. So, if you're not
thought about this, I think today is a good day to consider organizing some
kind of guidelines or rules for your home or your business or your marriage
or whatever you got going on. Because without rules, guaranteed there's going
to be chaos. Okay, first. And you're creating it.... Because I'm not going to
tell you what rules to do. I'm going to give you the categories I would think about
in organizing these rules. So... Or these guidelines. So number 1 is attitude. You
know, what kind of attitude is acceptable and what kind of attitude is not
acceptable, With attitude, when somebody's in a bad attitude, they usually will
treat other people in a bad way. When somebody has a good attitude, they will
treat people in good way. And so that attitude also
covers for me is how you work with each other. How you interact with each other.
Because without some kind of governing principle about attitude, you're not able
to even govern the way they interact with each other. So to lay out the
guidelines about attitudes and how they interact with people.
Second one is curfews. Now, this is about the home and when it comes to curfews, I
think it's important for every child to know the safety guidelines because I
don't think kids get it that by staying out late at night, there's trouble that
happens at nighttime. People are out there doing mischievous things and sure
it's fun to go out late at night. And I think the reason why they think it's fun
is because there's some risk factor and the fact of what's going to happen out
there late into the evening. So at our home, we had curfews. And there
were times of the week that they came home like... Monday through Friday was a
certain curfew. Because that was Monday through Thursday because those are
school nights. Then there was the Friday night and then there's the Saturday
night and then there's the Sunday night curfews. And those were put in place for
safety reasons. Now, covering curfews with my kids, it wasn't just like you have to
be home at this time. I would help them understand the safety part. And even
though they didn't understand it, I would keep repeating myself
week after week of the importance of following the curfew. Because then
everybody's home and you know, everybody's heading home by that time.
And if they're not home then we can really honestly start to worry, right? And
so curfews have been a really big one for us in creating that safety and that
respect for mom and dad and the rest of the family knowing that you really
should have been home and it helps us not worry all night long. We know we have
up until the curfew to be okay and then we can start worrying. If you're a parent,
you know what I'm talking about. But curfews are super important and the
rules and guidelines of a home. Next is what about everybody's stuff? Is it okay
for everybody's stuff to be piled on the kitchen table or on the counter
or is it okay that shoes are left in the living room or all over the stairs? Is it
okay for coats and jackets and that kind of stuff just to be tossed on the floor?
This type of guideline and rule helps keep actually the home in order. It's not
that you're trying to be a clean freak or you know be a perfectionist. What it
does is it helps keep the home in order. You know, everybody's stuff goes in their
bedrooms. Or all the jackets get hung up on this rack or on these hangers. And all
the shoes go here. But this is put in the guidelines and the rules of the home. Not
just as a neat idea during the week but it's literally this is how we keep the
home in its place. All of dad's tools go in the toolbox. Bikes go in this corner
of the garage. You know, you... When you can lay out your house of where things go,
you actually are teaching your children how to have structure in their life. How
to have order in their life. And without structure and order and systems, your
kids are going to grow up not being very good with time management, not being
very good with relationships, not taking care of their stuff very well. And so, I
think it's important to put in the family guidelines about where based
stuff goes. And you laid out in the steps that you want it to say. But if you don't
put it in there, your house is going to be subject to messes and messes cause
emotions. And then emotions get passed and forth between family members and
then also things get broken. So, I think it's important to have that
as a guideline. Now next, consequences. You know who likes
to issue consequences and follow up on consequences. That's the tough part. But
it's not as tough as if it's talked about in the house guidelines and the
rules. But if you only have rules and guidelines and there's no consequences
written about or stages of consequences... This is something I've learned as a
parent is because I used to have like if you broke one rule, there was one
consequence. Everybody had to face the same
consequence. But I've learned to actually take consequences and put them into
3 different stages. You know like, Well, if you do something wrong over here,
here's the first level of consequences. Well, if you continue doing these things,
here's your second level of consequences. And if you keep doing these things,
here's the third level of consequences. So they get eased into the consequences
based upon their repetitive... What do you call when something goes
against the rule? Repetitive against the rules, behaviors? But we... Instead of just
one consequence or one level of consequence. Maybe come up with 2 or
3 levels of consequences. That makes a world of difference.
Because then they can see what's coming at them. For all of us, right? But
consequence. Now here's the big one. In writing. This all... If this is talked about
every week and it's not in writing, well you give a teenager or a child 5
minutes to walk away from the kitchen table after talking about this. This is
not important to them. This is not going to be on their mind.
Are you kidding? This is the last thing they're going to think about. They're not
even thinking about their homework, they're not even thinking about having a
clean room. They're not going to think about this stuff. But this must be reviewed
really. I said must. I'll just say this. I suggest that you review this on Sundays.
On Sunday, it's kind of like the end of the week or you can see it as the
beginning of the next week. But if guidelines and rules are not reviewed
every week, then the family becomes weak. And so you don't want to miss that.
And you keep reviewing it every single week and watch you'll still have your
kids not follow them and then fall into the consequences. They're learning how to
follow structure and order. But put it in writing. And it's posted. You know, you put
it on the pantry, the door to the pantry or on the inside of the pantry or inside
the cover. Or maybe it's point posted next to you
know, the bathroom mirror so they can see it. Not like he's trying to be intrusive
with it but so that they have heard it and they can see it. And when there is an
action taken against the family rules and guidelines and it's time for to
review consequences, you can pull the paper out and they've just heard you
within the last seven days talk about it. They pretty much know what's coming at
them, what their consequence is going to be. And to me, that is called respect. When
everybody is in on the same page, because it's all written and everybody knows
what the rules and guidelines are and the consequences are. Consequences happen
no matter what. We might as well make them known to our children
that when you go into a state of chaos in your life, there's there's prices that
you pay. But if you can review it each week and you have it in writing, then
what happens is that the kids learn or your spouse and you learn or the people
at the office learn. Where have you decided to set up guidelines and rules.
But again I'm going to say. If there's no guidelines and rules to govern the
people or to govern the space, it will go in to chaos. And when there's chaos, there
is loss and then somebody gets hurt and then people get offended and now you
have more chaos. So to improve your situation, take these steps in moving
towards having more of a home or an office or a marriage or a family of
order. And collaborate. Talk to your family. Come up with the rules together.
When the group comes up with the rules together, they have a higher chance of
following those rules. But when dad comes up with the rules and then he just
issues them out as a memo to all the children, you're probably going to find some
rebels arise in your family. But talk about it. Talk about where the family's
weak or where there's problems and come together as an agreement.
But help remove the chaos in your life. There's sometimes levels of chaos you
really did not have to face. You really didn't have to do. They were go through
that chaos. Rules and guidelines help establish peace and harmony and
everybody working together. And it creates safety. That's the biggest part
as it creates safety. So everybody knows that there's something governing what's
going on. And that's what we do here at 3 key elements. We like to bring up
the topics, the situations, the challenges and help you put things in order. Because
when we understand the steps of what to do or what what really needs to happen,
we really can move our life forward. We can have progress. So stay close to us
here. You know, subscribe to our YouTube channel here so you receive each
training video that we send out to you. And then also check us out at our
website on at 3keyelements.com. And come attend to our courses and
take your education and your skill level to that next level. Because your life
matters. Your family matters, your life matters and that's what matters to us.