Make a better family this year

With a fresh set of months on the calendar, it’s a time of year when most people look inward and take stock of who they are, where they’ve been and where they’d like to go. Alas, many of those thoughts don’t extend past the first week of January, and we lapse into our same old habits and laugh with our friends about the difficulty of change.

Parents, though, have it a little different. Well, a lot different, really. Because everything we do has consequences for our children — whether we realize it or not. Kids have been the inspiration for many of us to improve ourselves, whether it’s quitting smoking because we didn’t want to set that bad example, or taking up a sport or hobby because we wanted to share something new with our children.

Moms and dads all have things we’d like to improve about that parenting side of ourselves. It could be something as simple as listening more closely or showing more patience, or it could be a bigger issue like sex, drugs, bullying or depression we know we have to confront head-on. It’s relatively easy to not rock the boat and let things continue on a rudderless course. The result, though, is often misunderstanding, miscommunication and hurt feelings or absentia that undermine the family.

One need not be a trained therapist to have a pretty good idea of what our family needs. Looking into the New Year, I’ve got a few of my own things I want to work on, and I’ll list them here in the hopes they inspire other mountain parents to step up their game.

1. Listen more to the kindergartner. Sometimes the rapid-fire discourses wash over me, and I don’t appreciate or understand everything he’s saying. Some of it may be incomprehensible to anyone but himself, but I’m sure there are some pearls in there as well. He’s the last of our bunch, so I want to hear it all and cherish it as we go.

2. Same for the three teens, although listening with them often means watching and trying to pick up on other cues. They can be masters of withheld information, so spending more time with them and letting it come out organically (versus “20 questions”) is the way to go.

3. Find more shared interests. I do pretty well with the three boys, whether it’s skiing together, playing video games or even the occasional match of Scrabble or chess. But where do I find that with a 14-year-old girl? She sure as hell doesn’t want me looking over her shoulder as she works her myspace page. Doesn’t ski or board. It may be that a weekly visit to the coffee shop together is all we need.

4. More patience, more respect. In a busy family with two working parents trying to keep it all together, the individual concerns of the kids can seem petty. But they’re not, not to them. Having the patience to listen to what’s going on with them and respecting their concerns is perhaps the greatest gift any parent can give.

5. Leave work at work. This is difficult for me, as a daily newspaper editor, since the e-mail and Web site follow me everywhere and never sleep. But I can partition it better, work in the early morning and close the laptop when the family scene starts heating up.

None of these things are difficult, but they do take time and commitment — and prioritization. We get these wonderful children for such a short amount of time, the commitment to be present for every phase and as many hours as possible is a goal worthy of this or any other year.

Managing Editor Alex Miller can be reached at 748-2920, or amiller@vaildaily.com.