Our Family Creed

family creed / Mom-Mondays / parenting / tips

*Post originally published January, 2010.

About five years ago, one of the pastors at our church spoke about the importance of creating a sense of team and vision within your own family.

One of the ways he’d done this in his family was by creating a Family Creed – a list of principals to live by, sort of a mission statement to help define what your family is all about.

As he shared his Family Creed, I feverishly took notes. Our daughter was about six at the time, our son was about four, and there were days during those years I felt like I spent half my time repeating myself, trying to teach the kids and discipline them.

The creed sounded like a great way to focus and get everyone on the same page.

As soon as we got home that day, I copied the list our pastor had shared and created our own Heikka Family Creed…

In case you can’t read it, here’s what it says:

The Heikka Family Creed

Heikkas share.
Heikkas keep their word.
Heikkas obey.
Heikkas let others go first.
Heikkas don’t whine.
Heikkas respect others.
Heikkas leave no one behind.
Heikkas act like gentlemen and ladies.
Heikkas don’t quit.
Heikkas don’t boast.
Heikkas do everything as if unto the Lord.

Mike and I shared the creed with the kids and it gave us a new framework to talk about the importance of things like letting others go first and not leaving anyone behind, like never quitting and always respecting others.

We made copies and taped it to each of their bedroom doors.

Sometimes the tape would lose its stick and the creeds would fall to the floor, but we’d always put them back up.

After a while, our kids even had the creed memorized. They could proudly recite it on their own.

It was helpful as a parent to be able to refer to it over the years, reminding the kids as they’d fight over a toy…

“Heikkas share,” or as they’d tell us about someone at school who was getting left out…”Heikkas don’t leave anyone behind,”

or if they weren’t putting their full effort into something…”Heikkas don’t quit.”

At eight and ten years old now (actually, almost nine and eleven), our kids need less reminding. And, I admit, we haven’t read or even talked about our Family Creed in a while.

In fact, the copy on my son’s door fell off several weeks ago and instead of taping it back up right away, I set it on his dresser and made a mental note to get to it later.

I didn’t think he had noticed that it had fallen.

Until the other day,

when I walked in his room and saw this…

He had taken it off his dresser and tacked it to his wall, all on his own.
It was still important to him.

And it should be important to me, too.

I might’ve thought, since my kids are older, it wasn’t needed as much anymore. But the fact that he put it on his wall made me take a fresh look at the principals and vision we share as a family.

And those aren’t something any of us should outgrow.

I loved the reminder he gave me, and I also loved the fact that he used a push pin instead of tape to put the creed on his wall.

Because I don’t think it will be falling down again anytime soon. :)

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Comments

  1. Jeanine

    LOVE THIS! love, Love, LOVE it!!!!!Peace and blessings to your day!Jeanine

  3. bluecottonmemory

    I love this! And, even though don't have it written (I love the idea), I am excited to see we try to uphold the same principles! It's the last one that I find it is hard to instill. We pray every morning that the work we do during the day is a gift to God – so we want to do our best. My boys (married son excluded)don't always make that connection – or, for example, the youngest wouldn't fuss (oops – whine) about reading! I have a lovely sign the boys gave me. I think it was from Cracker Barrel – about there will be a $5 charge for whining! It's in the kitchen-family room! And cited by the boys! LOL

  4. Jansen Family

    Genny, this is such a great idea! Our kids are still pretty young, but I'm sure they would "get" it…at least my 3-year old! I love the idea…this is what our family IS and this is what WE do.~Carla

  5. Lexie Loo & Dylan Too

    A family creed is a great idea! I have a few friends who have made them for their families. I'll definitely have to consider this!

  7. RR Mama

    Thank you Genny! I hope you don't mind but I am going to copy this. It's a wonderful idea.

Comments are closed.