Family TEAM!

Every Monday night, we hold a family meeting. We're committed to it! Monday nights are considered so special, we don't sign up for sports or turn on the TV or allow any other distractions to fragment our Family Home Evening (the title our Church gives to it).

We had a great discussion the other night about our family being a team. I led the discussion, and everyone contributed some amazing insights. I think the way the discussion unfolded was, in itself, a team effort!

First, I had everyone close their eyes and visualize a team -- whatever came to their mind first. Then everyone reported, and we took notes about their comments.

My oldest child pictured the Broncos, his favorite football team. Specifically, he had in mind their logo and the Peyton Manning jersey that his Grami Tami (my mom) gave to him for his birthday. So, for our notes, we wrote down there are individual team members, like Peyton Manning. We also wrote down that teams are often identifiable by certain artwork and outward appearances.

Next, my husband brought up the Red Sox and how they just won the World Series because of their beards! (Okay, I suppose the cause and effect *might* be questionable). We made a note about team solidarity, and keeping on attempting to win no matter how many losses precede the final victory! We pointed out that some games seem to have greater importance than others...

The twins had in mind (yes, they had the same thing in mind -- they are, after all, identical) our favorite university, BYU, and its rival, U of U. Upon further questioning, though, it turns out one of them was thinking of basketball while the other was picturing football. So we wrote down the fact that there are different sports, and that there are competitions -- but not JUST competitions: the teams practice a lot!

My four year old heard the word team and said, "Winning!" We discussed that there are parties upon winning!

My second oldest, Truman, pictured a team of people playing Dungeons and Dragons. This brought up the fact that not all teams are sports teams, and this served as a nice segue into our Family Team discussion.

So, keeping in mind all of the observations about teams we discussed already, how can we apply these to the concept of a Family Team?

Come surfin' tomorrow to the Clueless Mama Blog for all the exciting details! (This post was getting too long...) Same Bat-time, same Bat-website...