How to Build Your Family Emotional intelligence Charter

We all want homes filled with love and laughter, kindness and compassion. As parents, we want our kids to both have the best and be their best. We also want to be the best possible role models for them. But it’s hard work, especially during these uncertain times. None of us expected that our schools would close or that we’d be spending so much time at home.

So what can we do to create the best possible emotional climate in our homes?  There’s a tool that can help. It’s called the Emotional Intelligence Charter.

It’s a written document detailing how everybody in your home wishes to feel. It’s about everyone stating clearly how they want to feel at home. Depending on the age of the children, they may need help with the writing part. But even young kids know the right words to use.

Here’s the prompt: How do we want to feel as a family? Some of the words we’ve seen come up frequently are: loving, respectful, included, safe, happy, calm, grateful, and playful.

You can get highly specific with it, like deciding how you’ll set the proper mood when it’s time to do homework, or it’s bedtime, or when dinner is served. When somebody is angry, what’s the best way to express it and settle whatever dispute might have caused it?

Simply allowing everyone to help create the Charter is empowering. It gives everyone in the home the chance to have a sense of agency over their emotional environment. In most households, that alone would be a big step forward.

A Charter can benefit parents by accommodating their needs, too. After a certain hour, adults want to enjoy peace and quiet and no conflicts or excess noise, and so the Charter requires everyone to respect those wishes. It’s a way of reminding children that their parents are human, too, with all the same emotional needs as anyone else. In the long run, that’s an important lesson for kids to learn, but too many parents try to shield them from that reality. As an unintended result, children have a hard time acknowledging adults’ feelings, let alone respecting them.

Putting our emotional needs in writing has a way of making them real for ourselves and everyone else. It acts as a reminder for those times when we feel overwhelmed. It serves like a contract—a formal agreement drafted in a moment of calm consideration, to help you during moments when you are anything but calm and considerate. You may feel a little self-conscious posting a Charter on your refrigerator door or hanging it on a wall. But if you try it, you might find that it works.

On the following page I provide instructions to help you build your Family Charter. 

Directions 

What will you need?

• Chart or construction paper
• Blank sheets of paper
• Colored pencils or markers

How do you start?

The Charter is made up of 2 basic questions. Exploring these questions together can build understanding and empathy for the needs of every family member. Given its collaborative nature, it’s important to find a time when everyone is feeling calm, focused, and ready to work together. We suggest doing this in a comfortable area like the living room or at the dinner table. 

Ask everyone to write down 5 feelings

• Ask everyone to think about how they would like to feel at home. (For example, you might want to feel respected, loved, connected, appreciated, and understood).
• Combine all the feeling words on one master list.
• Discuss each word and notice which feeling words have similar meanings (e.g., appreciated and valued) . Can we choose just one? Narrow down your list to a “top 5” list.
• Write down your “top 5.”

For each word, discuss the things that each person can do to have that feeling.

• What are one or two specific, observable behavior(s) that each family member would need to exhibit in order to have the feeling as often as possible? For example, being ‘nice’ is not a real behavior. Smiling or saying ‘good morning’ to each other are behaviors that everyone can see. 

Now it’s time to pull all the pieces together and create your own living document.

• Be creative! Use your family’s talent and have fun. It can be big or small, colorful, or filled with drawings.
• What’s important is that you have a final document that includes the top 5 feelings and the specific behaviors.
• Once the Family Charter is complete, everyone must sign it!
• Display the Charter prominently in your home.

Keeping your Charter alive

• Schedule weekly or monthly family meetings to review the Charter. What’s working? What’s not?
• Have each family member set a daily or weekly goals to uphold the Charter
• Be creative – post weekly quotes, send out family emails, perform random acts to demonstrate the feelings in the Charter and show appreciation for your family members.
• Revise the Family Charter, as needed. It should be a living agreement.

This essay was featured in the March 29th edition of The Sunday Paper. The Sunday Paper inspires hearts and minds to rise above the noise. To get The Sunday Paper delivered to your inbox each Sunday morning for free, click here to subscribe.