Excerpt from Reggie Joiner - source
"If you were to analyze the rhythm at your house, you would soon discover that much of your family life consists of repeated patterns. As much as we resist that thought because we like to think of ourselves as free beings, we actually behave like creatures of habit. If you don’t believe that, take a different route home from work tomorrow, switch places at the dinner table, or change up the side of the bed you sleep on tonight.
That’s why we (try to) put newborns on a schedule as soon as possible. It’s why we tend to go to the same gas station when we’re home, because familiar is efficient. It’s why we keep a calendar, set up family nights, why TV shows lock into a time slot and stay there, why churches don’t randomly alter service times and dates (Hey … church this week is Thursday at 3 a.m.), why stores open and close on a schedule, and why we have alarm clocks. Our lives are largely programmed around a rhythm.
You have a ”normal” flow of conversation. As a family settles into a routine, much of the daily conversation can become transactional: Did you brush your teeth? Is your homework done? What’s for dinner? The after-school exchange can easily become, “What happened at school today?” “Nothing.” Rhythm can tilt us away from meaningful dialogue or lean us into it.
This is how rhythm establishes value. Things that become part of the daily rhythm are the things our families will come to believe are most important. Rhythm silently but significantly communicates value.
So what if you rethink your home’s weekly rhythm:
- What does it look like?
- Which nights do you tend to eat together?
- What do you do when you first get home from work?
- What is your nighttime routine to get ready for bed?
- What do you do every Saturday morning?
- How do you spend Sundays?
Discuss it as a family to see what you can discover about the rhythm of your home."
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