Creating a family song is a great way to connect with your kids, and instill what you hope your family stands for.
For the past few years, I’ve had BIG plans to make a family motto and decorate it all cute to display in our home. I’ve seen so many great ideas online, and we even once sat down (2 years ago) and made a super fun and cute family motto peppered with inspiring phrases for goals and such. Then I lost the paper that had our fabulous ideas on it, and I’ve felt ill about it ever since. Instead of it magically appearing (after wishing and hoping) I thought I’d sit the family down again to make a new one. I remembered snippets of the one before, and had a plan of action–to steer the family into coming up with something on their own of course, but guided by what I wanted. Well, it didn’t quite happen how I wanted, and at some point in the process, I had to let go of my ideals and just go with it. Go with what the kids came up with–silly and serious–something that they would love. I wanted them to love it as much as I loved the idea of it, so I had to let them do it their way. I’ll admit, I wasn’t thrilled about the opening line, “Duke Family has 12 knees” but when they laughed and loved it so much, and it rhymed with “trustworthy” I relented. I had to just go right from the start.
I kept to a little bit of structure, as we planned words that went along with the letters that spelled: T-E-A-M-D-U-K-E. So really, a lot of the structure was guided by my ideals of powerful words that we aim towards living, but the beginning and the end are silly, but every time we sing it (which is pretty much daily in the past 2-3 months) we all laugh with silliness and delight. And that’s what I want, right? Something that will STICK! The kids had it memorized the day after we made it–they had to keep reminding me.
I printed this as an 11×14 picture, and mod podged it onto a navy blue wood board, stuck a bracket on it, and it’s now on my family room wall (which you shall see in full reveal mode tomorrow).
It’s to the tune of My Country Tis of Thee, but patterned after a Looney Toons song spoof . There are no typo’s, it’s supposed to be organisms (per the silly Looney song) not organs. That’s another part that is just silly that the kids love. But the overlying message is that even if a bully is punching you in the face…we will be: steadfast, immovable, kind, etc. We’re not the “fight back” kind of people, we aim to “walk away” in such an incident.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to sit down with your family and make a motto, or a song, and make it fun. The kids will be more likely to remember it, sing it, hopefully internalize its’ message. It’s not how I planned, but I love it now!
Do you have a family motto, theme, or song? I’d love to hear about it!
