Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. We're broadcasting to you live through Facebook Live and we're also recording this for podcast and YouTube distribution later. The date is May 18, 2017. This is episode 025 of our series around Mormon Transitions. We're releasing this both on Mormon Stories podcast and on Mormon Transitions podcast because it applies to both audiences. But the topic is one that I'm really excited about. It's something we've talked about doing for a while, and it's mostly my brilliant wife's brainchild.

John Dehlin [00:01:08] It's about creating a family culture, let's just say during and after a religious transition. You know, so many parents worry that if they no longer remain orthodox or even religious, that somehow they'll not be able to raise healthy, happy kids or have a healthy, happy family. And to some extent, I think many high demand religions really encourage that fear by telling people, you can't raise happy, healthy kids outside the church. And, you know, no one's perfect. But we feel like we know many, many families who are raising amazing kids. And our kids aren't perfect by any stretch. Neither are we. But we feel like we've created for us a special and a meaningful family culture.

John Dehlin [00:01:58] And so today we are going to talk about that. And Margi is going to be the primary lead in today's discussion. So to my brilliant wife. Welcome back, co host to Mormon Stories and Mormon Transitions.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:10] Thank you so much.

John Dehlin [00:02:11] Good to have you.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:12] I'm happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:02:13] Why is your voice so sultry?

Margi Dehlin [00:02:15] I know.

John Dehlin [00:02:16] Are you trying to be Raquel Welch? Are you trying to be Raquel Welch? What's going on?

Margi Dehlin [00:02:20] Yeah, totally. Yeah, no, I have a sinus infection. But on the mend and super excited to be here.

John Dehlin [00:02:29] It's good to have you. We're excited. For everyone who's joining us on Facebook Live, as of now, it looks like we've already got 52 people. So we'll hurry through the announcements and then we'll jump right to the content.

John Dehlin [00:02:43] We have a lot of really exciting events coming up. More and more being planned each day. July 7th and 8th in Dallas, Texas, we'll be holding our next Mormon Stories retreat. Oh, so many great people will be there. We're really, really excited. We've decided on the 9th of the 7th to hold something like a fireside that's going to be open to the public. So if you aren't able to attend the retreat, if you live in the Dallas or Texas or surrounding areas and you want to just attend an evening with People like you, or just to talk and discuss life as a liberal or progressive or post Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] Please consider joining us again. It's Dallas, Texas, July 7th and 8th, July 14th and 16th through 16th, Dan Witherspoon and Natasha Helfer Parker will be doing a retreat for people trying to stay constructively engaged in Mormonism. It's sort of called a Mormon Matters retreat. And it's their second and please check that out. Really excited. For August 11th and 12th, Dr. Julie de Azevedo Hanks and myself will be holding a retreat for couples who are in mixed faith marriages. If one's a believer and one's not a believer and you're really struggling with that, you won't be outnumbered by post Mormons or believing Mormons. It'll be like literally split down the middle.

John Dehlin [00:04:07] I'm not in the church anymore. I'm not so much a believer in orthodox Mormonism, but Dr. Julie Dazeveda Hanks is. She's both a believer and active in the church. And then all the attendees will be split between believing and unbelieving members of a couple. So we hope you'll join us there.

John Dehlin [00:04:27] For those who are interested, September 14th and 15th will be in Seattle, Washington. We're going to try and do a fireside there as well. October 20th, 22nd, we'll be in Sydney, Australia. And we'll spend some days before then just kind of touring Sydney and the surrounding areas. So it'll be about a week in Australia. I'm going to miss you. I wish you could come.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:52] Well, you never know.

John Dehlin [00:04:53] Okay, maybe Margi will surprise us. But for those who want to just have a fun time down under with Gina Colvin, Dr. Gina Colvin as well, please consider joining us in Sydney, Australia. November 9th and 10th in the San Francisco Bay area. Again, we're going to try and do not only a workshop, but also a fireside there. And then new, brand new to our event lineup in 2018, we're announcing here first a Mormon Stories cruise to the Bahamas. It's quite a ways away because we want to give people a lot of time to plan. So October 24th through 28th, 2018, we're gonna have a Mormon Stories cruise.

Margi Dehlin [00:05:38] That sounds fun.

John Dehlin [00:05:39] And we're gonna do swimming and beaching and playing and even karaoke.

Margi Dehlin [00:05:47] No way.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] Yeah, karaoke. And it's just gonna be fun. And there will be a, you know, a little bit of a fireside or a workshop kind of thing there as well. Seminar. But we're really excited about it. So thanks to everyone who's been Supporting Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation and these podcasts we've received.

John Dehlin [00:06:07] Each week we receive one or two donations that really make a difference. But we just want you to know we're so grateful for those of you who take that time to become monthly donors or subscribers. Your donations make all this possible.

John Dehlin [00:06:21] And so if you haven't supported us yet, please go to mormorestories.org, click on the donate button, and just 10 or 25 or 50 bucks a month can really go a long way towards keeping these podcasts alive. Also, please like us on Facebook, please like us on itunes, please share these programs, all sorts of things like that can help us become more successful. So thank you for supporting us.

John Dehlin [00:06:51] Upcoming retreats. Next week we're going to do something special. Margi has written a talk about being broken open that we are going to record live and maybe take questions or feedback. I don't know, we'll see. But it's going to be a treat. Whenever Margi is giving this talk at our workshops and retreats, she's reduced the entire audience to tears. And it's one of those pieces of wisdom that you'll listen to over and over again and find new meaning each time. So that's exciting.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:24] Thanks, love.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] I'm excited to do that next week. So that's our announcements and now it's time for that segment that we implemented last week, the Weekly Share, called the Weekly Share. Margi, what's the weekly share?

Weekly Shares from Hosts and Listeners

Margi Dehlin [00:07:40] Yeah, so my weekly share, it's kind of a silly thing.

John Dehlin [00:07:43] Oh, tell us what it is first. What is the weekly share?

Margi Dehlin [00:07:45] It's just the idea is that we share something from our life. It can be very simple that's just bringing us joy for the moment that we would love to share.

John Dehlin [00:07:54] And those of you on Facebook Live right now, if you want to share really quickly, a weekly share, we'd love to read some of your little, you know, something special from your week that you're doing to live a better life, to live a happier life that you're just enjoying or appreciating. So we'll look through those comments and maybe share one or two right now. So get typing, Facebook live listeners. But Margi, what's your weekly share?

Margi Dehlin [00:08:20] Yeah, and they're supposed to be kind of simple, no need to overthink. So for me, mine is a breakfast that I've been having that really brings me joy. So what it is is so frying pan, a little oil, good, healthy oil. Then you add a few slices of red potato, really thin Sliced slices. And you add it and you just sort of flip them a little bit. They'll cook really quickly. Then I add some greens. It can be like spinach. It can be kale and you kind of get it. So that's wilty. All wilty. And then I slide them off the skillet and I add a couple eggs that I kind of chop up. And then you put the eggs onto the. And it is delicious. Delicious. Salt and pepper. And it's just doing it for me lately.

John Dehlin [00:09:11] Now, to be moral and ethical, you should probably attribute. Who gave you that idea and who taught you to do.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:15] I would want to do that. Thank you for that.

John Dehlin [00:09:17] It wasn't me.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:18] My daughter Anna, when she was home, it may have been over Christmas or she was the first to make it for me. And boy, it just doesn't good protein. You get the greens in there. Try it.

John Dehlin [00:09:32] Thanks, sweetie. Mine involves food, too. So I think we've got food on the brain today. So some of you may know that we, the DeLand family, are moving to Salt Lake City next week. And we could not be more thrilled. We're super sad to leave Cache Valley. We love Cache Valley and we feel like it is time for us to move to the big city to move to Oz. It's time for Dorothy to go to Oz. Is that a bad metaphor? Maybe that's a bad metaphor. Anyway, we're so excited to come to Salt Lake City and we're really sad to leave Cache Valley. But also our two daughters are here.

John Dehlin [00:10:11] They're going to be going to school at Utah State and we're sad to leave them. So my little share is that I've scheduled a daddy daughter dates with both my two daughters and I'm taking each of them separately to a taco truck.

John Dehlin [00:10:27] And I'm just gonna love them up and visit their new apartments, check out their new digs because they just moved into their new apartments. Have some tacos, maybe some beans and rice.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:38] And love up my daughters before, you know, before we have to leave them and move oh, so far away. So that is my share. It looks like Julie Aldrich has shared something with us. She said her mantra this week is be present, seek balance, and know peace.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:02] That's nice. I love that mantra.

John Dehlin [00:11:05] Thank you. Thank you, Julie. That's amazing. Thanks for sharing. Patricia writes, my weekly share is that I realized it is okay to ask for help when I need it, especially after my infusions for my illness. I think that's amazing. Patricia is telling us it's okay to ask for help. Is it hard when you're an achiever to ask for help?

Margi Dehlin [00:11:26] Sometimes I think it's super important. It may be for me. If. Is it hard? Yeah, probably sometimes. I've learned though, there are times and usually people really love helping. So it really. The people that you're asking to help really appreciate the fact of the intimacy implied that you would feel comfortable asking and oftentimes being able to give back.

John Dehlin [00:11:53] Super important.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:53] Yeah, it's a win win.

John Dehlin [00:11:55] It's a way to give them a chance to be intimate with you.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:59] Yeah. Being with people when they're vulnerable is one of the most beautiful things ever.

John Dehlin [00:12:05] So don't be scared to help and don't be hesitant to accept help. Don't be scared to ask for help and don't hesitate to receive it. So thank you, Julie. That was really. Patricia. That was really good. Ryan writes my share. After months of unemployment, I just received official word that I start my new job on Monday. I'm so thankful for that and for my friends that have helped me out during this difficult time. Let's high five on behalf of Ryan. Way to go, Ryan. Nice job. Congrats on the new job.

John Dehlin [00:12:39] Oh, wow, we've got another one. Brittany writes. My weekly share of. What makes me happy is that I saw John and Margi jogging the other morning while I drove to work. Well, that's so sweet. So she saw us while she drove to work. I didn't want to be creepy, but I hope you feel like rock stars, know, because. Do you feel like a rock star, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [00:13:06] No.

John Dehlin [00:13:06] Unless there's, I mean, no working housewife mom, you know, rock stars. Maybe there's some of those. Oh, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:13] I thought I was being literal. Sorry. Sure.

John Dehlin [00:13:18] She says, I didn't want to be creepy, but I hope you feel she was super excited to recognize us and it made her day. I love you both and thanks for helping me feel accepted during transitioning.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:30] That's fun.

John Dehlin [00:13:30] Brittany, come visit us before we leave because we'd love to meet you. If we haven't already. Maybe we have, but. But if so, we'll meet you again. All right. Thanks, Amy Grubbs, for sharing with us those comments. Please keep those coming. They're really rich. So thanks to everyone for contributing so far. Okay, so, Margi, I gave a little bit of an introduction on this topic, but I'd love you to introduce it in your way. Why do you think, why did you pick this topic for our audience specifically? What's the context? Sort of in a religious or Mormon transition, you know, either to liberal Mormonism, because we started all this way before we left the church.

Why Intentional Family Culture Matters

Margi Dehlin [00:14:11] I was gonna say, the truth is we have always sort of. I feel like we've always felt for this and kind of done this. So I feel like it is super important and it also.

John Dehlin [00:14:25] Why do people need it?

Margi Dehlin [00:14:30] Well, here's the thing. You have it. You have it right now. So my view is why not be mindful and aware of the culture that you're cultivating in your home. And so that's more of where it stemmed for me. I remember in Seattle feeling like, oh, maybe I feel a little differently here than things I'm hearing on Sunday. So here's a way for me to actually cultivate and empower messages in our home or even emphasize messages from church too, that I just felt. So it's a great way to focus and it's so empowering. It's just one of those things. I'm all about things that are very practical, but I'm also about things that make you feel empowered and fulfilled. And so this is. That is true of what we're discussing

John Dehlin [00:15:21] here and just echo some of the comments I shared at the very beginning. You know, the church does a great job of filling your life up with culture, from family home evening to family prayer, to church attendance, you know, to church activities, to church music, to, you know, church talks. Like, you could literally, you know, mormon it up for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

John Dehlin [00:15:48] But when you sort of unplug, you sort of take the red pill and unplug from that orthodox matrix, it can be really scary and disorienting. And I do think the church, like most high demand religions, prime you to be scared that you can't have a healthy family and a happy family without orthodoxy and you can't have a healthy marriage and you can't raise healthy kids without the church's orthodox culture.

John Dehlin [00:16:17] And so what we want to just talk about is how to be mindful about that. And you're right, everyone's already doing it. And honestly, I think a lot of our listeners probably have rituals and values and traditions that we could all learn from. So before we even jump in, we're going to be talking about values and rituals and traditions that you can implement as a progressive or post Mormon. And we want to start now by asking our listeners if they want to type in the the comments some of their values or rituals or traditions. We'll share them as we go in the program.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:54] And can I give just a quick disclaimer before we begin? So naturally we're going to be sharing things from our home right today. And so I just wanted to be careful about. There are a couple reasons why I chose to do that. Clearly it's what we know and that's why it's a pretty natural thing. But also it makes it more interesting. I am practical, so I don't love like discussing things at a high level without kind of bringing it down. And so that's another reason that I decided to go ahead and do that today. It is not because our family is perfect or because we think we're all that today and we just like to share it with you. That is not the reason why. It's more just for interest and also to kind of bring it down in a practical way, hopefully in a way that's helpful.

John Dehlin [00:17:49] Not only does perfection not exist, but striving for perfection is one of the main enemies of joy and happiness and well being. So we are not gurus, we are

Margi Dehlin [00:18:00] not role models, but we're all on the journey together.

John Dehlin [00:18:04] I think Margi has been a master nurture of a family culture that has really worked for us. So I think she's worth listening to.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:14] Oh, thanks. I really hope you feel the same way.

John Dehlin [00:18:19] All right, let's dive in. Take it away, Margi.

The Family Culture Tower Framework

Margi Dehlin [00:18:22] So the first thing I wanted to do was just sort of think about a visual and thinking about family culture as a tower. So we'll be laying out sort of these tiers, these levels, family culture with the idea that as you build. Sorry, that as you build, there is more power with all these things together than if you did, if you just focused on one, for example. So we will start with that sort of idea that the cumulative effect would be, is greater than sort of this sort of singular idea. So, so it begins. The foundation is values, of course. So the values are the foundational layer.

John Dehlin [00:19:12] Okay. And we've talked about values before, but I want to make sure we define values. And it's even more tricky because we're defining family values. And I just will never forget growing up in Texas in the 80s. There was the Ralph Reed crowd with kind of the Christian Coalition, who took that term family values and in my opinion, really bastardized it or damaged it.

John Dehlin [00:19:41] If you were to ask me growing up, you know, what do family values mean? I would have said, well, it means don't drink alcohol, it means don't take drugs. It means don't have premarital sex, don't get an abortion, you know, watch, don't watch our movies and don't cheat on your spouse. And that's those are family values. In other words, sort of orthodox, conservative, Christian don'ts are what we associate with family values. And I'm just going to take another moment to do what I've done before and define what the word values means. The word value literally means what do you value?

John Dehlin [00:20:21] And so in the, in the context of family values, it literally means what does your family value? Now your family can value health, good health. And in that sense, maybe for your family, you know, moderate or no alcohol or drug use, that might be sort of a tactical decision you make in the spirit of living your value of health. And of course other people made drink alcohol responsively and also share the value of health. But the point is that the value is something like good health. It could be something like honesty, it could be something like kindness, it could be something like truth or education or learning.

John Dehlin [00:21:07] And our point, I think at the beginning is that values do two really important things. They provide you with direction. If you want to go somewhere as a family, but you don't have a map, you don't know where to go, if you don't have your little Google Maps GPS device, you're going to just kind of wander around potentially or you risk wandering around. So values provide you a direction. You list out your family values, you know what direction your family's going. The second thing that values can do is motivate you because if you're ever down, if you're ever feeling lost or discouraged, you simply as a family or as a couple, you pull out your list of values and, and you say, well, what do we stand for?

John Dehlin [00:21:49] How are we doing on these things that we value? What are some activities that we can do and start pursuing that will move us in a direction and that will get us going and get us unstuck? And so that's just an introduction to the idea of values. Another just final point to make is that values can grow and change.

John Dehlin [00:22:12] And so you may have a set of values in year one of your relationship or marriage or family, or in year 10, but over time those values can be refined. And so there's nothing wrong with every month or every six months or every year doing a re inventory of your values and taking away ones that you don't feel are necessary to note, maybe adding some others that mean a lot to you. Having your values grow and change is a good thing.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:38] Yeah, I think that's important to note. Just also because let's say you have young children, maybe your values at that point will reflect that and we're gonna kind of take you through a few examples of what our values were at different times in our life. So I thought I would start in Seattle. In Seattle, our children were younger. Our oldest children were probably preschool to kind of middle grade school, I would say, so younger, I would say like three to. Well, newborn to probably seven or eight. And our values, I remember then John and I coming together and making out a list of values. And the values from that time were truth, beauty, beauty, meaning, like music, art, literature, plays, culture. So truth, beauty, love, excellence and joy.

Defining Your Family Values

John Dehlin [00:23:43] Truth, beauty, love, excellence and joy.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:48] And I remember I put those up on a bulletin board.

John Dehlin [00:23:52] Were those part of our wedding vow in our.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:54] They may have been. Yeah, it may have been. And so for that, that was kind of like a couple thing. I felt like it brought us closer together. It gave us an identity at that time with the children. I would add if you came into our home in Seattle, what you would see was nature. Like I took the kids out for walks probably every day. And creativity. There's a lot of just painting, drawing, creative play, play doh. And so those were. Would be the two things I think for the children that you would see a lot of as well. So that is the Seattle sort of young years. And then,

John Dehlin [00:24:35] yeah, as the kids started going to school, I. We always, you know, we always made them breakfast and sometimes we drive them to school or take them to the bus stop or whatever. And I felt like I wanted to develop little thing to say to them every time I said goodbye. I think that probably comes from my Mormon background, you know, the whole return with honor or don't forget who you are. But I wanted it to be something that wasn't sort of guilt inducing and simplistic and honestly over saturated with Mormonism probably. So I developed five words that I wanted to tell the kids every day before.

John Dehlin [00:25:15] Before I dropped them off. And so if I was driving them a car, if I was walking with them, I would say, hey, have a good day and remember the five things. And I would say, these are the five things I'd say, be kind, learn, work hard, have fun.

John Dehlin [00:25:36] And then I would say be obedient. And what I meant by obedient is if you're going to school, don't break the rules of school because you can get in trouble over time. Our kids told us they hated that value of be obedient. And I'm sure there's many post Mormons or, you know, liberal Mormons or questioning Mormons that agree that that's an awful value. So, you know, it worked for that. You can receive feedback and change as a parent over time. In my time in psychology, I learned that flexibility was actually a key to positive mental health. And so I added that as a sixth value. But once the kids value.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:18] Did you.

John Dehlin [00:26:19] Being flexible.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:20] Being flexible, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:22] Being psychologically flexible. Open to what life brings instead of trying to control what life brings, because that's. That's attachment, according to Buddhists, is suffering. So. So it got to the point where I would say that so much that I would stop saying it. And I would say, what are the five things? As I would drop them off for school, and so they would go, be kind, learn, have fun, work hard, and be obedient and then be flexible. And it wasn't me telling them, but it was them telling me. And some may call that brainwashing, but I think it's.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:56] It was kind of focusing, actually, and playful.

John Dehlin [00:26:59] Yeah. And one of the most, you know, meaningful gifts that I received as a dad was this. So one of my daughters, I think it was a Father's Day or a birthday of mine, my daughter Maya put together a storybook called Remember the Five Things? And she illustrated it, and in it she told these little stories, you know, about each of the. You know, each of the five things.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:27] And there's coming to play in her life.

John Dehlin [00:27:29] So there's be kind someone being kind with someone who has a disability. Here's, you know, work hard, and there's someone studying and working hard.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:42] And it was kind of like she was faced with a predicament and then remembered the value and then kind of guided her. You should show them a little last page when she graduates.

John Dehlin [00:27:52] Yeah. In the last page, she draws herself graduating. I don't know how to make this look good. She draws herself graduating. What does that mean to you, the graduation picture?

Margi Dehlin [00:28:02] Well, I just love that in the end, she says she named the girl in the story Claire, but she said that for the rest of her life, Claire was a better person because of those five things. They helped her make a lot of important choices, all thanks to one person, Claire's dad. She made a difference in the world one step at a time, and her dad was proud. But what I loved about this was just. It's the idea that they have power. I mean, the things that you choose to focus on actually can make a difference.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:33] So. And I was gonna say. I would probably say that was the focus from when our children were probably around the ages of 3 to 12, so preteen, I feel like that was a great kind of centering, I don't know, ritual. Before the kids left for school. Now I did something little bit different to kind of capture what our current culture would be. I texted my children, because values change over time, right? That's right. And I think we've made amidst our transition and the excommunication, it has been less overt in our family life. So I was curious what our children would feel, what they feel our values are sort of in the past six years now.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:21] Our children now are 21, 19, 16 and 13. So I texted Anna, who's at college, still spends some time at home during breaks and things. I asked Anna what five values she feels in our home, what we emphasize or support and live on a daily basis. And they did not know what each other were writing. So that's interesting too, to see if anything. And this is kind of a great activity. Can I say, if you want a starting point, just to see, hey, what do our children feel like our family values are? You can do this, you can pull them aside, give them a sheet of paper and say, you know, if you.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:05] What do you feel from our family that our top five values would be? And it can be this really interesting sort of, I feel like information gathering session for yourself. Anyway, Anna said, education, tradition, communication, vulnerability and connection.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:27] So that's what our oldest daughter said. Maya gave me two Maya. So our 19 year old said honesty and vulnerability. And then the two youngest that are actually living at home now. So Claire is 16, said honesty, education, kindness, health and nature and communication.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:50] And then our youngest, Winston said honesty, kindness, learning, have fun and health. So what's interesting to me about that is the overlap. It does feel like some things overlapped. And anyway you. It was just a great way to sort of get in touch with are we living what we value?

John Dehlin [00:31:13] And it's one thing to kind of tell your kids the values, it's another thing to have them reflect back what values they're just inherently experiencing in the home. So try that as parents. Try asking your kids, even if they're grown up, you know, what values do you see in our family lived out, or what values you remember being most emphasized growing up. And it can give you real sense of satisfaction or clarification or clarity to go through that experience.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:45] Yeah, yeah,

John Dehlin [00:31:48] yeah. So, yeah. So let's see. There are lots of values that you could have. You know, we've also considered other values in our family, like contribution. Obviously our work with the Open Stories foundation is sort of based on our value that not only do we just have a great life or try to live a great life, but also try and give back. So that's a value.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:14] And our children have that in their lives too. I feel like.

John Dehlin [00:32:17] Yeah, for sure. We focus on responsible media use. I think if you guys saw our home, you would feel like we're very, I don't want to say controlling, but yeah, we're very conscious of screen time, of mobile device time, of TV time, of computer time, because we just think that we should all live a balanced life and we all struggle with that at times, but that is definitely a value.

John Dehlin [00:32:45] But I think the most important value that I see that came through here. We just really believe in emotional connection and emotional health. And so we talk a lot about vulnerability in our family and intimacy and emotional intimacy and connection. And this comes from our study of Shefali saberry and her work in a book called the Conscious Parent. But in the religious paradigm, the structure is control and coercion and consequences.

John Dehlin [00:33:18] And we've realized that if you, if you deal with your kids from that standpoint, basically what can happen is you just teach them to lie, to resent you, to hide from you, and to do whatever they want just in secret. That if you really want, you know, to have a constructive influence with your kids, it starts with emotional connection and intimacy where you talk to them and you love them and you make them feel good and you make them feel comfortable with you and you're vulnerable with them and you're open to their feedback and you explain the principles that behind the rules and you get their input and you get their buy in on rules and consequences and boundaries, et cetera. And it's difficult, it takes more time, but it's something we've really valued.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:12] Yeah, I was thinking another value I might add to the kids list would be growth, which I think is super important. Coming from where we've come from, where perfection really was, I feel like something that was the end goal, that it was expected that because the idea is you will make mistakes. So let's talk about what you learned from it. Let's talk about what you do with what you experienced in a way that actually gives to you in your life. So growth would be another one really quickly.

John Dehlin [00:34:45] Mike writes, one of our family values is discipline through love and uplifting words. Instead of no or stop, we just say, no, thank you. Mike writes, words matter so much. The saying sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me is incorrect. Mike writes, words define us and shape our minds. So fill your kids minds with the right words.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:12] Really love that, Mike. And, you know, words oftentimes stick and stay. You know, oftentimes you can talk to adults that still can replay words from their childhood or things they were told, so. Such a good point.

John Dehlin [00:35:27] Yeah. And if you want to share, if any of you have values that you want to share on the Facebook Live comment feed, or if you want to share it on the blog@mormonstories.org Once we post this or on YouTube, please go ahead and just share some of your values. That's a really positive thing.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:44] Yeah. So to break it down a bit, I thought, you know, how do you get started. How do you get started in a values discussion with your spouse, with your children, with your family? So if your children are old enough, one thing you can do is brainstorm. Get together and brainstorm. If they're really small or if you think it's. It would be helpful, you can actually print out a list of, you know, 15 or so maybe 20, 25 values and let them circle maybe their top five or list their top five.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:19] And then you have, you bring them all together and you put them in a master list. And then you kind of discuss as a family, which ones feel the most important out of the cumulative. Everyone's basic five that they kind of turn in. You choose from there. You vote, and then consider with what you vote those final five, or however many you choose values, find a way to display it somewhere so it can focus you and it can remind you all kind of around those values each day. You'll have a visual there.

John Dehlin [00:37:00] And if you don't like New Year's resolutions because you find you, you violate them within three days of making them. What we did for many years was family values, where we would sit down and do a values inventory, and each child write down their own personal values that they wanted to live by. And so instead of like saying, I want to lose 10 pounds or I want to, you know, win some race or get straight A's or whatever it is, they just every day looking at what are my values? It's learning, it's fitness, it's health, it's exercise, it's communication. That can be a really fun family exercise.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:38] Really fun. And then they would write them on cards and decorate them. And I loved it because they were connecting with themselves in that activity. It came from them.

John Dehlin [00:37:49] Lolly writes, empathy is a big one that I try to teach my little girl. Thanks, Lolly, for sharing another one of your values. If any else, if anybody else has a value they want to share, please do it. We'd love to hear. All right, what's next?

Putting Values Into Practice Daily

Margi Dehlin [00:38:04] Second block.

John Dehlin [00:38:05] All right, the second block is embodiment. And this is one that Margi listed. But I'm. Yeah, and why don't you tell us what you mean by embodiment?

Margi Dehlin [00:38:16] Yeah, what does embodiment mean? I think the idea is the living, the values, how. How people experience them in your presence if they see them lived. And it sounds so simple, you know, but it's actually just practice what you preach.

John Dehlin [00:38:33] Is that what you're saying?

Margi Dehlin [00:38:34] Yeah, Right. It's really actually living what you say. And I think your children really notice. They are looking to you to see, you know, how is Mom. How are mom and dad experiencing the values? Are they aware on a new level? And they're looking for integrity there? And so embodiment, I think it's a great place to kind of start.

John Dehlin [00:39:00] My dad sometimes in moments of desperation would say to us, do as I say, not as I do. And I, you know, he was kidding. And that was a, you know, an interesting and a fun thing that he would say to us. But, yeah, the truth is, it's one thing to have values. It's another thing to live them. And it's another thing to live them in the heat of the moment when your kids can be grouchy or disrespectful or just passions can be flaring.

John Dehlin [00:39:33] It's really important to model this stuff because maybe one of the worst things you could do is really emphasize values as parents and then not live up to them. And what's hard about that is you don't want to get defeated and beaten down because you're not perfect, because we're not going to be perfect at living our values. Values are a direction. They're not a destination.

John Dehlin [00:39:55] And so with that, we're going to make mistakes. And then it's easy for a kid to just go, oh, my gosh. You say our value is this or that, and then you don't live it. And then all of a sudden you feel beat down and discouraged. And so living it is actually quite challenging.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:10] And as a parent, if you're having a discussion, a connection discussion with your teen, let's say over media use, right? But I'm on my phone all the time, or they're trying to talk to me and I'm texting or I'm distracted, it matters. They see that discrepancy and it makes your conversation less potent, less. And we, our children, actually will, at different times, give feedback around that or say, and we need to Be open to it and say, you know, know what? I actually am a little bit. And it is addictive. I feel ya. So, you know, we're all on the same. We're like working toward it. But your strongest place is one where you're working to embody the values and then also showing compassion for yourself and your children when it gets a little rough.

John Dehlin [00:41:04] So one example of this is when. So we have a value of vulnerability, healthy communication and intimacy. But what happens when maybe one of the kids has done something we're upset about or don't like? Or what if a kid's just rude or disrespectful? Again, how do you handle it? Well, if I sort of act instinctively, maybe I lose my temper, maybe I yell, or maybe I just say, do what I say or obey me or, you know, apply some punishment or you avoid it. Yeah. And none of that, none of that is aligned with the values that we've been talking about. And so one of the challenges with values is sometimes they can make things more complicated or require more time.

John Dehlin [00:41:54] And in the case of how we deal with disagreements, if a kid's upset, or two kids are upset with each other, if we're going to live our values of healthy communication, of intimacy, of connection, well, that means we have to actually take the time to sit down with the kids.

John Dehlin [00:42:11] And believe me, if you've ever been in the Delhin home for more than three days, you will have witnessed somebody get upset. And us calling a little meeting, whether it's on the floor of our bedroom or the living room, and we're either moderating between two of the kids or between the parents and the kid, or between one parent and one kid, or, or another parent is a moderator.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:34] And this would be when they can't clearly reconcile it on their own, that's clearly the first choice. But sometimes, especially in its teen years,

John Dehlin [00:42:44] yeah, sometimes I or you will get engaged with the teen and we start losing our grounding a little bit. And so sometimes the parent who's in a bit of a more stable place, and sometimes even one of the children who's in a bit more of a stable place will take the leadership role in helping to moderate or mediate a discussion where people can share how they feel, share why they're upset on both sides, talk about what our values are, talk about the behavior or the situation, and then apologize if necessary, validate, validate each other, make sure both sides understand why the others were upset, then hopefully come up with some sort of resolution. And it takes more time. It really does. And a lot of our time is spent talking through hurt feelings or, you know, boundaries or whatever. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:44] Or even processing tragic things that have happened to our kids or things that experiences that have left them feeling unsure. That takes a lot of time and energy to have those sort of one on one. Or maybe we take the child out for a walk and really try to help them work through and process some of those more challenging and complicated feelings in that way.

John Dehlin [00:44:17] Yeah. And the other thing is, it's difficult and it's painful. But one of the things we've noticed is that one of the keys to human relationships is emotion regulation. And parents don't talk to their kids about emotion regulation a lot of the time. But more importantly, parents can lose control of their behavior because of their emotions. And so for us, modeling emotion regulation is essential. If I'm upset, if I've been hurt, if I've been offended, if I can pull it together and show them that even though I'm upset, I can choose my behavior while having feelings of being upset. It's the only way to help model and teach emotion regulation to our kids.

John Dehlin [00:45:05] And we're finding that if a kid goes out in the world without emotion regulation skills, they're going to have a lot of trouble and a lot of self medicating. A lot of reckless behavior, unhealthy behavior comes from an inability to regulate emotions. But that begins with us.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:25] It does. And emotional regulation can also look like, I really love you. And I can tell right now that we're really, you know, this is hurting both of us. So I'm going to go ahead, I think we should call it right now for five or ten minutes. No, I love you.

John Dehlin [00:45:40] Or an hour or a day and

Margi Dehlin [00:45:42] we'll come back to it. That can be emotional regulation as well. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to, you know, have this external control when you're feeling really overloaded. So that would be another part of modeling emotional health in our family as well as the discussions that we have with connection versus control.

John Dehlin [00:46:04] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:05] That takes extra time too, versus just saying you were late for curfew, here's your punishment.

John Dehlin [00:46:12] You're grounded.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:13] Right. Which is a complete disconnect. Usually your child just disconnects and is upset. It's more time, it's more energy to sit with the child and say, let's talk about curfew, shall we? Let's talk about why, where we're coming from. I'd love to hear what's happening with you when you're late, when you should be coming home. Why you don't, what's stopping you from being on time?

John Dehlin [00:46:36] And we tell them that our motives are their safety, their health, and their well being, you know, and sometimes they'll say, well, but sometimes I want to stay after curfew. And we're in a healthy, safe place. And we've even moderated our curfew policy to allow for an extension based on them being in a really healthy, safe situation. So being flexible really quickly. David writes, being present in every moment is a value of his. It's so easy to get detached from what's currently right in front of us. Thank you, David, for sharing. Please keep those comments coming from those joining us through Facebook.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:14] Yeah, Another value of ours is connection. And I was thinking it might be valuable to take you through the process of, let's say you do the value session with your family, with your spouse, and you have your list right. Where do you go from there? One thing I thought is just taking you through the basic process. And the first step would be assessment, right? So let's say we're looking at connection, which is one of our values as well.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:43] You would just honestly look at your family and say, you know, how are we connecting? And am I happy with the level of connection that we have? And really just sort of assess. And then in those areas, maybe that you're less happy with the weaker areas. That's when you get to be creative and say, are there obstacles in that area that are affecting our ability to connect? And some obstacles could be in the area of connection that you're distracted, right? Maybe you're on your phone a lot when the kids are coming home or you have a lot of things going on so you're distracted from.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:21] It could also be that maybe your schedule is a little challenging and it's really, really busy and that's making it so the pace of life is such that it's so fast it's making it difficult to connect. Maybe it's. Could it be your reactivity, your kids actually are afraid of you or don't feel safe opening up? And so there's this avoidance going on in the home. These are all questions to kind of ask and it's a good place to kind of sort of remedy. Like, how do. How would I go about having. Embodying this value that I feel like that we have chosen? How could I do that?

Margi Dehlin [00:49:02] And what would it look like on a daily basis? For example, one thing, John, do you want to talk about that you do at Winston?

John Dehlin [00:49:12] So I was, you Know, Margi's got this advantage over me, I think, in her role as, you know, kind of a stay at home mom in the sense that the kids come home from school around three or four, she can give them a little snack or whatever. And then sometimes just in the natural sort of space of that coming home period, you know, the kids will tell her about their day. But then, you know, I'm done with work at 6 o' clock and I come into dinner or whatever, or I see the kids and I'm like, tell me about your day. For some reason, sometimes when they're explicitly asked, how was your day?

John Dehlin [00:49:53] Like, my son Winston just told me, I hate, I hate it when you ask me how my day is. I'm like, what the crap? I would have thought you'd like it that I take an interest in you and care about what's going on.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:03] He's often like, talk to Mom.

John Dehlin [00:50:04] Yeah. He's like, I already told Mom. Ask her. And I'm like, well, I kind of wanted to connect with you, but so, you know, Winston's been learning ultimate Frisbee and he really likes ultimate Frisbee. And so he likes to play Frisbee. So instead of like trying to corner him at dinner or, you know, ask him in a way that he hated, I just would say, hey, bud, let's go throw the Frisbee. And you know, whenever we can, we go out to the field kind of by our house and we play Frisbee golf or we throw the Frisbee. And lo and behold, just through the natural course of kind of being together doing something else, Winston sometimes will open up and talk about stuff.

John Dehlin [00:50:46] And that's really kind of special. So it's a way. And I think you're kind of talking about assessment. Don't be scared if the method that you're using to pursue your value isn't quite working. Be open to other ways to pursue the value by doing an assessment. This isn't working. Let me try something else. Because it isn't that Winston didn't want to connect. It's that for him, connection happens when he's feeling a certain way. And it's not when he's cornered by his super tall dad trying to force him to give an immediate response about his day.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:25] And I actually remember reading in a Psychology Today article, even with partners or spouses, that when you go out to eat, to not always sit across from one another, that people actually just psychologically have a difficult time sometimes with that direct pressure of communication. And I found that a Lot of people will talk about how their teams open up in the car because they're side by side. They're not necessarily. So. Yeah, I think you're totally right. That method totally matters. And to kind of rethink things if you're, if you feel like there's an obstacle kind of in the way or something's not working.

John Dehlin [00:52:05] Excellent. So I guess we had is one more point to talk about a recent situation we had with Winston where we just actually, our daughter was home from college and she's like, you guys are always reminding your younger kids what to do. You're always telling them, wake up, get dressed, brush your teeth. Yeah. And it's been true with maybe all of our kids at one point or another where, you know, Margi, I support. And Margi really loves rituals. She loves bedtime ritual, morning ritual. She loves to make sure all the important things get done before and after school. And yeah, it put us to the point where our daughter sort of alerted to us that we were just reminding our kids all day long and they weren't learning maturity in terms of self motivation, self governing, etc.

John Dehlin [00:52:56] So we decided in this case not to pick on Winston, but we decided to sit down with him and to talk to him about our values and how one of our values is that we're not always having to tell him what to do all the time and checking on him and nagging him.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:14] Did he notice we were talk like nagging him all the time and saying those things?

John Dehlin [00:53:19] Yeah, yeah. And he was super connected. He's like, yeah, I hate it when you guys do that. It almost demotivates me. And so what Margi had him do, she sat down with him and she had him make a list of the things he's supposed to do every morning and the list of things he's supposed to do every night. And we sort of put a timeline together of what needs to be done by what time.

John Dehlin [00:53:41] And we just sort of said, we're not going to nag you anymore. We're not going to remind you, we're not going to bug you. But there's certain parts of that ritual that he really enjoys, like getting a little nighttime tea or a little back scratch from Margi, or he likes his screen time, you know, with either, you know, his Sony PlayStation or his cell phone. And we sort of, we've sort of tied some of those privileges to his ability to complete the list and to be self driven. And it's really fun to see Winston waking himself up and checking his list. And it Makes him feel better about himself.

Margi Dehlin [00:54:18] And not only that, but he, like, added to the list. So we did. We started with the basics where we were like, make your bed and do these things. And we were chronically stressed because he would be late. So a lot of it was just to be on time. But then all of a sudden, he adds, I kind of want to make my own breakfast every morning. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:37] So now every morning, instead of us making Winston breakfast, he's up there making himself breakfast. He's waking up extra. So that's the crazy thing. What we were doing was building resentment and demotivating him, and it wasn't effective, and it was frustrating all of us. But by sitting down with him, getting in touch with values, and then sharing emotional intimacy and connecting with him, he ended up not only doing the things he needed to do, but adding to them in a really beautiful way. And so far, so good.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:06] Yeah. And I would just say the key to that is being consistent and being willing to honestly have the natural consequences spelled out. And if it isn't met or if things go awry, then you honestly have to. That's where the rubber hits the road, where you have to say, oh, I'm sorry. Do you remember last night? And it didn't quite work out, but let's try again. And you're doing really great on this one anyway.

John Dehlin [00:55:35] Love it. All right, so before we get to ritual, which is our next thing, Patricia writes, knowing that each of our children are different and how we approach them and teach them will be different. So she's basically just saying not all of our kids are going to respond to the same approach in the same way. And knowing that kids are different and sometimes isn't that the truth, require different responses is a really key.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:03] I know sometimes you get that, you know, rhythm and structure, and not only that, but something that works for a child at a certain time, all of a sudden, you realize it's not working anymore. So parenting, it just really keeps you on your. On your toes.

John Dehlin [00:56:18] Mike writes 70% of communication is body language. So learn effective body language. Speak your truth through your body language. I love that. Rachel says we need to write a book. I agree. Can we write a book, please? Will you write a book with me?

Margi Dehlin [00:56:35] Yes, I'll write a book.

John Dehlin [00:56:36] Margi's gonna write a book with me. You heard it first. You guys hold her to that and hold me to that. All right, let's see. All right, Margi, so now it is time to talk about ritual.

Rituals That Reinforce Family Identity

Margi Dehlin [00:56:49] I love ritual.

John Dehlin [00:56:50] And if you're. If those of you are still tuned in. There's 56 of you tuned in. Please start writing in the Facebook comments some of your family rituals, because we will share them with the listening audience. And we know that many of you have way better or way cool rituals that are just as good or better than ours. But Margi does an amazing, masterful job at ritual. So I'm going to shut up and let you tell us about the rituals you've shared in our family.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:15] Thank you, Beth. Here's the thing about ritual. You know how we were talking about embodiment and kind of reviewing some of those values, and the first step was

John Dehlin [00:57:24] just values and then embodiment ritual.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:29] This is such a great place to start if you pick a value that you can't really see, right? And so you're looking through and you've taken care of sort of your part of saying, what would it look like if I embodied this value? But what if in your family life, you don't really have spaces for it to live and breathe that value? Ritual is a perfect place to begin to have it, sort of. This is where your value show up in your daily life. It's where your children will feel it in your schedule. They'll feel it from your embodiment, they'll feel it from your person.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:05] But this is where you actually create space to say, this is important and it will happen. So I love them. I think they're grounding. I find them really connecting and they're really fulfilling. Really simple things go a really long way. So what are some examples of rituals from our home?

John Dehlin [00:58:27] Do you want to start?

Margi Dehlin [00:58:29] Sure. One thing that I would say is just we treat morning and evening as special times. So when our children wake up, they'll get a good morning. We normally make a meal for them before they go to school. Then we also end their days with usually reading time. And I normally make tea, and I usually end sort of as they're going to sleep with a massage or I'll, you know, tickle their back or do something soothing and connecting with them. But morning and evening, we slow down time and we show up to connect with them.

John Dehlin [00:59:10] And I love that Margi has this amazing ritual where she goes to the library every week and buys cool books for the kids to read. So every night before they go to bed, they can just run to the book bag and grab a book that either they requested or that Margi thought they'd like, and they always have something to read. For those of you who want your kids to become readers, that is a masterful ritual that Margi implemented. And our kids are all. Were all readers growing up, which is something I wasn't. So I'm really thrilled that you implemented that ritual.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:47] Thanks, honey. Other ideas? So we could start with daily. You can also do weekly rituals, but some other daily ones would be dinner together. We try to do that most evenings where we sit down.

John Dehlin [01:00:04] Definitely five or six times a week. We have a family dinner.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:07] I try to make a fresh, relatively healthy, very tasty meal. And we do gratitude. Now we share gratitude in lieu of a prayer because that kind of makes everyone feel great.

John Dehlin [01:00:25] Another ritual, when we stopped going to church, during different phases of our journey, we were really conditioned to think that you had to have structure on Sunday or you couldn't have thoughtful, spiritual, moral kids. We've relaxed on that a little bit, but we have several Sunday rituals that have been really rewarding for us. So we wake up in the morning, and we usually try and make some type of big breakfast. You know, eggs, bacon, hash browns, waffles, pancakes, whatever it is.

John Dehlin [01:00:58] And for me, one of the most magical parenting times of our entire married life. And by the way, you can do rituals if you're single. You can do rituals if you're a couple without kids. This is, you know, we talk about kids because we have them, but this applies to everyone. But one of the most sacred times for me is that moment Sunday morning. The kids have kind of rolled out of bed, we've eaten this big breakfast, and then we're just sitting around the living room, and conversation just erupts, whether it's someone's date the night before or something that they've been thinking about or something they read.

John Dehlin [01:01:36] And sometimes the, you know, four or five or six of us will just get into this really thoughtful, loving, intense, passionate, intimate conversation that only happens once you've got this ritual that provides the structure and the soil for the intimacy to grow.

John Dehlin [01:01:58] And so that combination of morning breakfast, space for conversation. Margi just loves Sunday hikes. So sometimes we. Pretty much always on a Sunday, we'll pick a trail and go hiking. Those are just amazing times for intimacy. And it all happens because of the structure of the ritual.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:21] Yeah, we did do a. Redefine our Sabbath kind of thing just to look at the values of a Sunday with new eyes that reflected our family, I think, at the time. So at different times, we've done Super Soul Sunday.

John Dehlin [01:02:39] What is that?

Margi Dehlin [01:02:39] Which is like an Oprah program that still is quite, what would you say, spiritual in nature. She brings on a guest of sorts, but we have stopped doing that. I think the culture in our family has shifted a little bit, and the kids really love a newstime show.

John Dehlin [01:02:58] So we'll watch 60 Minutes as a family on Sunday morning or early afternoon. 60 Minutes has a good variety. Like, you know, last week, I'm thinking it was like someone who a lawyer from the Nuremberg trials, but then they had a segment on, like, the Boston Red Sox. And it gives personal interest stories and news items that have broad appeal. And us sitting down to watch 60 Minutes as a family and then talk about what we saw, that has provided some really powerful moments. And it's just, you know, it's like, up, it's Sunday news time, and we'll go down and watch the news.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:38] And having said that, sometimes they don't want to do it, and so we don't. Or they want a shorter version. So we'll say, how about a TED Talk? Do you guys want to. You guys can pick it, any topic you want. I think it's important to be flexible and to allow. We don't like forcing our kids to do things they don't want to do. So having a lot of options. What are some other things to do?

John Dehlin [01:04:02] Some of the listeners have added, we'll just mention a few and then you can mention others as well. Alicia writes, I'm always excited to see my kids. I make sure they know it. Hugs after school, meet them at the door. After work, or being with friends, I always find a way to show them that I'm happy to see them. Thank you, Alicia.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:21] I bet they feel that, too. Alicia.

John Dehlin [01:04:23] Jacob writes, communication with my kids is so essential. At dinner, we always talk about the day with them. No matter what happened, the day no one is in trouble, we have to keep that communication open so we know where they are at. Life. It is amazing that we talk about. It's amazing what we talk about and how they feel safe telling us what is going on in their lives. And it sounds, Jacob, like you're modeling this idea of connection and intimacy, where even if the kid tells you, I skipped school or I punched a kid in the face, instead of destroying the family experience by getting mad and punishing them, you're basically saying getting in trouble is off limits.

Margi Dehlin [01:05:04] Not to say, Jacob, that your children are saying that as the dinner meal,

John Dehlin [01:05:09] but you're basically saying connection over control and manipulation. Alicia writes, we also have a dance party.

Margi Dehlin [01:05:17] Dance parties are the best.

John Dehlin [01:05:18] While we do chores together, makes it fun and enforces my favorite value, cleanliness.

Margi Dehlin [01:05:25] Great.

John Dehlin [01:05:27] Yeah. And then Patricia writes, we talk about our Day at dinner also. However, for one, for every one negative thing, we also have them tell us two positive things. If they want hugs, kisses, and I love you is always before they leave the house when they come home. And I love that. Of, like, just going around the table. Maybe you don't have a prayer anymore, but what's wrong with going around the table and saying a few things you're grateful for and a few things that went wrong that's really positive. So thank you, Patricia and Alicia and Jacob and others for sharing some of your rituals. Were there others you wanted to add?

Margi Dehlin [01:06:01] You know, the only other thing I'd say is you can. So as a couple, you can have rituals. One thing that John and I do regularly is we try to walk together, we run together, and we've recently started doing CrossFit together. And those are always. I mean, they're just times where you kind of reach for one another in your days. And I just think it's a beautiful thing. And it. I always feel better on those days that we do that, so. And then recently, Clara and I have been attacking parenthood together.

John Dehlin [01:06:33] Okay, so there's a TV show that, if you haven't seen it, it is probably the best TV show Margi and I have ever experienced. And all throughout our 20, whatever, three, four years of marriage, depending on how you count, we've always watched TV shows, and Parenthood, by far, is the best.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:50] And it's great to watch with teens, like, older, kind of 14 to 18. I find it brings out and it reflects our values. We kind of look at it and think, you know, we really appreciate the values it portrays there and the way it portrays family. Not being perfect, but working through difficulty, being there for one another. And it really doesn't dance around difficult topics.

John Dehlin [01:07:18] And our teens love it. So if you've not checked out the Parenthood TV show, check it out. It's outstanding.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:26] Yeah. So just a final thing around rituals. Be creative. Allow it.

John Dehlin [01:07:32] Julie writes this Is Us.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:34] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:35] That's a great show, too. We love this Is Us. So thanks for the tip, Julie.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:39] We're on the same page.

John Dehlin [01:07:39] This Is Us is also a fantastic show.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:42] Absolutely. Anyway, be creative, start small and stay simple. There's no need to, like, be the overachiever here. A little goes a long way. And don't forget the daily versus the weekly. You can have weekly rituals and daily.

Celebrations, Traditions, and Home Environment

John Dehlin [01:08:02] All right, moving on the next topic. So we've got. Let's see if I get this right. Values. And then on top of that embodiment, living you know, practicing what you preach, walking the. Walking the talk. And then on top of that, you've got rituals. This is the Margi pyramid, which is sort of the Margi family pyramid.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:24] Yeah. It's the structure with which your values,

John Dehlin [01:08:26] rituals, your life are the sort of like daily or weekly time structure that. That acts as the vessel to deliver the behavior that's based on the values.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:40] Margi's next sort of level is tradition, which is a little bit like values or a little bit like ritual, but it's actually a little bit different because it's sort of seasonal and it's slightly different than ritual and maybe in different ways. So, Margi, talk about why you think tradition is an important level in your pyramid of family connection.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:05] Well, here's the deal. Here's why I differentiate. Tradition happens. Can happen a little less frequently. Right. Than rituals. But I don't know, when I look back in my life, I don't know if you all are the same way. There's sort of an emotional impact around traditions. So that would be like holidays, like birthdays, like, there's emotional impact there that makes it memorable. So I just wanted to harness that a little bit.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:30] They may happen less frequently, but the emotional impact oftentimes is considerable. So these can be anything from birthdays, holidays, vacations, celebrating the first day of school. I think it's important to note you can create your own tradition, your own holiday. It could be the last day of school. It can be a coming of age, some sort of age you want to celebrate with your children. It can be around seasons, the first day of fall, winter solstice.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:59] So you. You can actually create your own as well. So an example from our home that I chose as an ex. Yeah. Just to focus on our birthdays. So when our children were little, I started to reflect on how I wanted to celebrate their birth, their entrance into the world, and what I felt like would be important. So taking our values into consideration, it would, like, connection and, you know, having them feel really, really loved and safe. And so. And sometimes those things get lost in parties. Sometimes they're there, but not always. And sometimes with gifts, they're not there. They can be, but they're not always.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:41] And so I wanted to create these traditions that would make sure that our children felt celebrated. And so a couple of things that I thought I would share, we started doing a tradition of writing our kids a letter. So John and I alternate, and once a year on their birthday. I'll show you. This is Clara's book. So they get a Book, but you don't have to have a book. You can start anytime. You can start when they're five, six.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:09] So we alternate writing a letter around their birthday and sharing what kind of person they are, how the year's been, their achievements, things that have been hard, joys that we, you know, we share with them. And so here is Winston's. This is what Winston's looks like as well. And so each of our children have these letters, and we read them out loud after we have their dinner.

John Dehlin [01:11:38] Birthday dinner.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:38] Yeah. So they choose their meals for the. For the day.

John Dehlin [01:11:42] Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:43] And after the dinner, cake and ice cream. We get. Get them all nice and sweetened up and satisfied. They can open their gifts. Whoever wrote the letter that year reads the letter. And it's this place to just sort of bask in them and celebrate them. And, you know, a lot of it may feel redundant to them because it's that year, but I'll tell you, they go back just, you know, Anna and Maya will go back when they're five and read their fifth. And you know what you don't remember? You don't remember what your favorite songs were, what you were like, what you. And they've really, really.

John Dehlin [01:12:16] Things that were hard that year for things that, you know, your accomplishments. What these. What these birthday letter journals end up being is sort of a chronicle of the highlights and lowlights and areas of growth of their. Of their 18 years at home, basically.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:32] Yeah. And one thing that I was reflecting on as I was writing, thinking about Clara's letter this year was, you know, I lost my dad in November. There's this piece where you just. You miss them. You miss their voice. You miss how they loved you or how they. Especially with a parent that, you know, you really felt connected to. And one thing I thought about with these letters and I've told the kids, this is when we're gone, you can still hear me because I'm right here. And you can know the things I loved about you. And you can get this sense, my love, through these letters each year that you lived.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:14] And so that's something that came to me recently. Another thing we do with birthdays is we do a trivia game around the table. So this is an example of, like, Clara's is here note. Like, not super fancy. It's, like, done on white paper colored by a child where we ask things about. I'm not doing it right. The kid. The child, the birthday child.

John Dehlin [01:13:40] So I'll read an example.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:41] So this one says, what is Claire's favorite childhood soundtrack, Celine Dion's miracle cd. Raffi Innocence Mission or Nicolette Larsen. And we'll have different trivia questions and each person at the table will have to read and then everyone will give their best guess. We try and pick things that not everyone knows or that aren't always obvious.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:07] And the purpose.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:08] Yeah. Is to get to know the child and have the child. And it's fun. I mean, here's. Who is Clara's favorite parenthood character? You know, I mean, it's just kind of a fun way.

John Dehlin [01:14:19] Is it Sarah, Julia, Amber or Max? For those of you who watch Parenthood, I want to hear what your favorite

Margi Dehlin [01:14:27] can see if you're right.

John Dehlin [01:14:28] Parenthood character.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:29] Anyways, so those are some things we do. Another thing that we do is we have photos of the child on the table around when we're eating the dinner. It's decorated with them from all ages. And we also open scrapbooks. So you know how if you order, organize. I did that for a bit. I haven't done that for a while. But we take those out and open them up and they can go through those for the day. We watch videos of them when they were younger, oftentimes after the meal. It really is just this way to connect with the fact that they are loved, they are treasured, that we, that we look at their life and we marvel at them. Right. That's birthdays.

John Dehlin [01:15:17] And that happens every single birthday, every single year. And it's a lot of work. Margi puts a lot of work and love into it, but I know the kids really treasure it. There are a few more rituals and or traditions that people are sharing. Kimberly writes, for years we would bond over making Irish stew and we would include a Guinness stout beer at the very end of putting all the ingredients into the pot.

John Dehlin [01:15:48] Pouring the beer in took an interesting ritualistic aspect. And I would always save a swig at the very end. Shame on you, Kimberly. Just kidding. After drinking the last drink. No shame. We're anti shame. After drinking the last drink, I'd say to the kids, all things in moderation. That's actually the opposite of shame. That's really powerful.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] I think they would get the subtle hint that it's okay to live an ethical life rather than a rule bound life. Wow, Kimberly. The hair on my arm is standing up. That was really beautiful. And then Patricia writes, we have family game nights and spouse date night. Those are great rituals. Those are a few weekly things. Daily we have dinner together every night, except sometimes if my husband and I eat out on A date. Then there are holidays with family traditions that have been handed down with each generation. Love the sharing.

John Dehlin [01:16:40] Kimberly and Patricia and everyone else. Jennifer says, margie, I wish I was your neighbor. I would want to hang out with you every day.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:50] Me too.

John Dehlin [01:16:50] Ann says, I do the trivia thing too, but the letters are so great. Remembering the love and treasures year after year. I love it. Lolly says Crosby or Adam are her favorite parenthood. Good choice, Lolly. Julie says she picks Max.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:09] No, no, no. She says, I bet she picked Max. But Julie loves Julia.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:14] That's amazing. All right, so we have a few parenthood fans and Lolly writes Sunday night, movie night. What a great tradition. Popcorn and juice. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:25] Sometimes we go on the news and we're like, let's just watch something fun. Popcorn, treats. Love that.

John Dehlin [01:17:32] Our own Amy Grubbs. I'm excited to have a comment from Amy. She writes, years ago, we created a kids Day. Our daughter asked us why there was a Mother's Day and a Father's Day and why we didn't have a day celebrating children. We've done that. We did that in Seattle. We had a kids Day. So we decided years ago to add a kid's Day that falls in between mothers and Father's Day. So kind of late May, I'm guessing.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:54] I love that you schedule it too.

John Dehlin [01:17:56] Yeah, that's probably crucial.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:58] Yeah. Because otherwise tying it to the calendar.

John Dehlin [01:18:01] So they have a Kid's Day between Mother's Day and Father's Day. And we let our daughter choose however she wants to spend this day. And we celebrate being a kid.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:09] Really Brilliant.

John Dehlin [01:18:10] Yeah. They get the whole day right. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, like activities.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:16] Creating a tradition for yourself that matches your. I love that too.

John Dehlin [01:18:21] And they spend the day celebrating their kid. She is now 16. Shout out to Mikayla. But now she still loves it and we all look forward to it.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:29] I love it.

John Dehlin [01:18:30] I love it.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:31] And again, no need to make it complicated. So the birthday one is a lot. Little involved. I'll say. But I do love this too. With Christmas time. You know, a lot of times it things get crap, like very stressful very quickly. Where you end up more is you're doing more and more and more. And I love the values conversation as a place to start. Like, what do we value? And then you build traditions in around those holidays that actually reflect that versus racing through and having like the culture, our culture, sort of determine what your Christmas feels like or. So there you go. I empower you to create traditions that reflect you and make you really happy.

John Dehlin [01:19:15] That's nice of you to empower them.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:16] I know you don't need that, but it was encouraging, right?

John Dehlin [01:19:21] I'll take some Margi Empowerment.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:23] So, anyway, okay, we're on the final block, y', all, so thanks for hanging in there.

John Dehlin [01:19:29] Block number five.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:30] That's right. And it's actually one of my favorite blocks.

John Dehlin [01:19:34] Yeah. And you can see a little bit of it right above us here. So tell us.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:38] Some years ago, though, tell us about it has the Mormon vibe still. So it's downstairs. I wouldn't say that's totally, but that was Seattle. That was a Seattle.

John Dehlin [01:19:47] Those listening have no idea what we're talking about. So tell us, Tell us what.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:50] So the final block in building a family culture would be your home environment. Makes sense. Right? But the way I would say it is like, what's your home vibe? What's the vibe of your home? And the idea behind this is sort of how can your home reflect what you value? How can you get those values like to be felt when people are in your home? And so you can consider ways to convey your values in your home environment. So we'll give you a couple examples of values that we have and then how our home would reflect the values just to give you, again, something practical.

John Dehlin [01:20:31] And so in all our main rooms of our house, so we have a value of learning and of education and of reading, frankly. And in all of the main rooms of our house, so the home teacher room, I don't know what to call it. We've got it. When you walk right in the door, turn right, there's a home teacher room, and then in the main living room, and then in each of the kids bedrooms, there's a shelf, a bookshelf. And on those bookshelves, we don't try and have every book, but we try and include books that represent important historical figures or important, you know, themes or concepts. So my Kaim Potok books, you know, my name is Asher Lev or David's Harp or the Chosen or the Promise.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:14] Are there, frankly, like our favorite books?

John Dehlin [01:21:16] Yeah, the, you know, biographies of Winston Churchill or Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt or Harry Truman or I have more fiction, Harry Potter or some of your classic favorites. What are some of yours?

Margi Dehlin [01:21:33] I kind of run the gamut with things, but I have like Steinbeck or I have Edith Wharton or I have what else do I love? Wallace Stegner or. But we're in there.

John Dehlin [01:21:46] And these bookshelves, really, we don't read those books anymore, but they represent and reflect our values of learning and of Heroes and of character and of virtues.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:56] And our children have them, too.

John Dehlin [01:21:58] Yeah. Yep.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:58] They have their own. So I've kept the kids books that they most love. They've gone through them and saved, because I'm a bit of a minimalist. Like, I love everything to sort of have value, if possible, in our home. And so they've gone through and picked their favorites, and then they have theirs from their teen years growing up. They keep kind of their favorites, the ones that they feel like were really formative or special to them.

John Dehlin [01:22:23] And the point here is that the physical surroundings of your home be designed in a way that they reflect and reinforce your values, and so you want

Margi Dehlin [01:22:32] them to read, so you have books.

John Dehlin [01:22:34] So having our favorite books kept in visible places in the bookshelves of our main rooms of our home is one way that our whole family is continually reminded of that value of learning and of character and of integrity.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:49] Another thing we do is that we have subscriptions to magazines that sort of reflect our children's interests. So for Claire and Winston, for example, right now they're really into this magazine called Muse, which is like a science magazine. And they really love that. It's been different at different times. So that's another thing. It comes in the mail. It kind of feels like a present, feels exciting. So sometimes we give those, as stocking stuffers a magazine subscription. That's kind of. What else do we do?

John Dehlin [01:23:22] We sometimes watch documentaries together as a family. We listen to podcasts. Sometimes when we're traveling, we'll put a podcast on.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:30] Or when I'm cooking.

John Dehlin [01:23:31] Orange is cooking.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:32] And we'll listen to it. We try and listen to classical music. I already mentioned our news time on Sunday mornings. But we take every chance we can to talk about what we've read or talk about what we've learned.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:43] We like to share.

John Dehlin [01:23:44] And it reinforces that value of learning.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:46] Oh, the other thing is one of. I have a magazine subscription to Psychology Today, which is totally nerdy.

John Dehlin [01:23:52] It's great. It's a great magazine.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:54] It's totally dirty. But I.

John Dehlin [01:23:55] She knows more about psychology than I do, by the way.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:57] I really, really love it. So I'll, like, for dinner, discuss an article or we'll kind of debate sort of an idea to something, and it's super fun. So. But you can use whatever your interest is, you know? Anyway.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:11] So another example of having a value be reflected in your home environment. Let's say the value was sharing vulnerability. So the kind of deeper layer underneath that is safety. Right. You want your children to sort of feel safe in the environment.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:30] So to me, that manifests in like soft blankets, candles, warm drinks on hand, good food, nice music in the background, bird feeder outside the window, like calming. And then the fact that each child, we've worked hard, we're not super fancy people, but each child has a room that reflects them, that they can sort of retreat to and feel safe and feel similar comforts in their own rooms. And I was just going to say, you know, clearly the emotional climate of the home of safety you would want to look at as well to match the physical. But that's an example of looking at vulnerability and feeling like, what does this like a safe, peaceful, calm environment.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:24] If we want people to share and feel safe to do so, what would that look like, feel like, smell like? So that is another way to do that.

John Dehlin [01:25:36] And then the final example of how Margi's tried to have our surroundings reflect our values is in. There's probably five or six places in our home where Margi's put up little signs. And so those of you watching right now, you can see a little sign that's right above our heads. And it's a sort of a Buddhist inspired quote that says, nothing is worth more than this day. And that's sort of the, you know, the Buddhist philosophy that if you focus on the past, you can't change it. If you focus on the future, you may not get it. So what's most important is now. And so we have a sign reflecting that.

John Dehlin [01:26:15] There's another Gandhi quote that says, be the change you wish to see in the world. That's a reminder to our whole family that we need to live into the thing, not just complain about the thing. Mary Oliver, there's a quote in my office that says something to the effect of tell me, what is it that you plan to do with this one wild and precious life or. Right. I don't.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:39] Life.

John Dehlin [01:26:39] Yeah. And it's just about making the most of every moment and seizing the day. Carpe diem sort of stuff, Right?

Margi Dehlin [01:26:46] And above where we eat, we have a quote by George Eliot that says, what is it that we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? So that's another very physical way that you can think about putting your values literally on the walls and have them reflected there and be reminded of them. So just some ideas.

John Dehlin [01:27:12] I love it really quickly to check in with our listeners. Shirley writes, at Christmas we hang out kids baby shoes on the tree. When they grow up and leave home, they get one shoe of the pair as A symbol of our continuing connection and the joy we experience because they are our children. Wow. That's a beautiful thing.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:35] Shannon writes, I think adopting or buying a dog or a cat is a great way to teach a child responsibility. I love that.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:42] It can also really add to just sort of a really nice cozy family vibe. People really love their pets.

John Dehlin [01:27:50] Some pets. Not all pets.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:51] Not all pets.

John Dehlin [01:27:52] Patricia writes, we have tons of books as well and a diverse collection. We have had to replace well loved books many times. Music and movies and shows are all great.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:01] Gosh, this has been a great discussion. Wow, that's so nice. Thank you, Patricia. Let's see. Yeah. Michelle writes, this is just a lovely discussion. I've been laughing, I've gotten tearful and I'm feeling inspired. Thank you. So thank you, Michelle. We're glad you like it.

Closing Thoughts and Resources

Margi Dehlin [01:28:20] All right, well, so that's kind of what we, we have today is just sort of, if it's interested you at all, this idea of creating a family culture, then we do have this idea of like a weekly challenge where we leave you with like something to sort of focus you or challenge you in the next week. And if you like to, and if that feels good to you, one thing I would challenge you to do is sit down and have that values discussion and see what your partner and you can come up with or what your kids, you come up with. And then begin from there to do the embodiment and then the rituals and traditions and lastly your home environment, how all those can build to this hopefully magnificent space that you all create together.

John Dehlin [01:29:14] And I'm sure most of you or all of you are already doing a lot of this. So it's just fun kind of sharing that with you. Hasn't it been great to get listeners share their rituals?

Margi Dehlin [01:29:26] Thanks so much for participating and those

John Dehlin [01:29:28] of you who are listening asynchronously, you know, just to the podcast, you know, go up to Mormon Stories and share your rituals or your traditions on the comments page of MormonStories.org or if you're on YouTube and you're watching this on YouTube after we posted it, go share it there. What's wrong with filling up YouTube and blog comments instead of with vitriol and negativity, filling it with positivity and with ideas.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:54] And we really do benefit from hearing one another, from hearing from, sharing ideas. So we really appreciate it.

John Dehlin [01:30:01] So Margi, thank you for planning today's episode. I think it was lovely.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:06] Well, thanks. A humble offering. So hopefully, I mean, you found one or two things that you know, resonated

John Dehlin [01:30:14] or so thanks to everyone who tuned in and who shared comments and experiences. Absolutely completely enriched this discussion. Thanks to everyone who supports the Open Stories foundation and Mormon Stories through, you know, donations, through contributions, those keep this alive. I want to thank Amy Grubbs who behind the scenes has been producing this episode. She's fabulous. As the director of operations, Cody Layton does a great job producing these podcasts. So I want to give a shout out to Cody. He does the audio and video editing and he does a great job. So thanks to Cody and again, if you value this content, if you want to see more of it, so many people have donated Mormon Transitions Initiative.

John Dehlin [01:31:01] That's what funds these episodes. Those of you who donate to Mormon Stories funds not only Mormon Stories, but the whole Open Stories foundation and our mission. So we just want to thank you and please encourage you that if you value this, just go up and click the donate button on mormonstories.org and sign up for 10 or 25 or $50 a month donation, whatever you can afford.

John Dehlin [01:31:23] Those donations keep us alive and we'll keep doing this as long as you guys support us. So thank you for that. So next week again, Margi is going to share with us a talk she's written called Broken Open. It's. It's a tear jerker. It'll rip your heart out and then put it back with love. If I can get through it, compassion. She will cry. And you will too.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:45] You're warned.

John Dehlin [01:31:46] But I won't. Because I'm tough.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:48] Super tough. And that's what tough's about.

John Dehlin [01:31:50] Tough is not tough. Equals not crying. No. Okay, I take it back. Not true. Anyway, join us next week for another episode of Mormon Stories Live or Mormon Transitions. We sure love you guys. It's an honor to do this with you. So thank you for tuning in.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:07] Appreciate it.

John Dehlin [01:32:08] Love you guys. And we'll see you again soon on Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.