Leading your Family through Challenges as a Team

Our current environment presents many challenges for families as a whole, and for you, as a working parent.

With many schools staying online for the foreseeable future and many activities canceled indefinitely, you may feel that you’re being asked to take on more, and with less support, than ever before.

If your child’s school is starting back up, you may feel worried for their safety, and/or your own. You may feel that you don’t know what course to chart in order to keep you and your children thriving.

Fortunately, working parents have the opportunity to help their families thrive by bringing the skills of being a good leader and teammate home.

Team skills like listening, collaborating, strategic planning, self-awareness, and compassion can greatly help the team that is our family as we tread into unknown territory. Every member of your family will have both unique needs, and forms of support that they can offer others

In this resource kit, you’ll learn how to:

• Develop a strong partnership with your family members
• Tune into each others’ wants
• Learn from each other
• Set goals
• Adapt during times of change.

Learn how to:

Show up as your best self.

If you’ve ever taken a commercial airplane flight, you know that in times of turbulence, you should put your own mask on before you help others. As a leader in your family, the same is true at home.

Develop a present-state understanding of each other.

How is everybody doing? Everyone in your family has likely been experiencing the effects of the pandemic in different ways. As a parent, you might be concerned about navigating limited childcare options while juggling work. Your child, on the other hand, might be worried about interacting with their classmates and teachers online.

Make a plan for the future.

Once you’ve figured out each others’ needs, it’s time to determine some goals and how your family can accomplish them together. Creating a plan and encouraging ongoing communication will enable you to support each other, tackle challenges, and not lose sight of progress.

Adapt to ongoing changes with optimism.

Our constantly evolving situation means that you’ll have to revisit your plan and adapt with agility even without major setbacks or challenges. Setbacks and challenges will be highly likely.

These challenges can demoralize your family-team, and create unnecessary conflict among members. Instead of blaming each other, you’ll want to focus on reframing negative emotions, solving problems, and coaching your family members towards necessary changes.