Episode 133

I believe every parent listening to this podcast wants to raise kids with character, kids who really know how to help and contribute to the greater good of the family and even of the world. And today we wanted to bring on a great guest, Jordan Langdon, CEO of Families of Character. And she's going to share a very personal story about how the way they were parenting and the way they were doing life.

 

wasn't working to such an extent that her marriage was kind of falling apart and it was kind of, it was in crisis and she needed to do something different. And that's where they stumbled upon this great intentional effort to start doing family huddles. And she's gonna give you her three C's on how to help your family go from one that's maybe fractured, where everybody's at each other's throat or everybody's at least just fighting for their own piece of land, their own.

 

role on the team to how to build a team that's actually playing together towards a common goal. And these three seeds will help you get started this week, where you can start building that unity in your team, you're really going to enjoy this interview and the way in which she shares these insights. But before we jump into it, please stop for a moment. If you haven't done this already means the world to us for you to leave a comment to rate the podcast, really helps this podcast get shared more.

 

to us so other families can see and be exposed to it. And then sit back and take a moment to listen to Jordan's story and about how to create a unified family team with this family huddle idea. You're gonna really enjoy it.

 

  

Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi, and I'm Sara. And today, Sara, we want to talk about character in your family. Isn't that something we're passionate about? Yes, we are. And we thought, man, we had this discussion. We got to get on this podcast last week. We got to talk to Jordan on her podcast. And we've had several other discussions with Jordan. And it's just been so fun to discuss all of our loves for all things family, right?

 

whether it's homeschooling, whether it's like living in Colorado because that's awesome and we don't and you do. And so that sucks for us. So without further ado, we want to introduce Jordan Langdon and just want to say thank you for coming on the podcast.

 

   

Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be on your show. I love what you're doing at Art of Raising Humans.

 

  

and you are a mom, you are a wife, you have three kids, two teenagers, right? One soon to be teenager.

 

   

Yes, I have an 18 year old who is actually at EMT training in Arizona for the next two weeks just graduated and then I have another son who's 12 and a daughter 10.

 

  

wow. Yeah.

 

  

Wow, okay. And so you, how long have you been doing this? You are now the CEO of a nonprofit called Families of Character. How long have you been doing that? Why did you take that job? What's your passion in regards to helping families?

 

   

Yes, so I kind of stumbled into families of character. Honestly, I was studying at the Augustine Institute to get an additional master's degree in theology, not an additional master's of theology, but an additional master's degree. And I was crazy. I was married and had three kids at two different schools at the time. I was running a full-time private practice as a licensed clinical social worker. So working in mental health. And, you know, why not take on another thing?

 

  

nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

 

  

you

 

   

my goodness. And in the craziness of going back to school, they assigned us an internship. And I thought, how am I going to have time for that? So my idea was just to find an organization that was housed in the same building as where I was going to get my master's degree. so totally, totally. So I knocked on the door at Families of Character and Steve Markle answered the door.

 

  

make it as convenient as possible. That's smart.

 

   

And I said, excuse me, do you offer internships? And he said, well, we never have. Are you looking for one? And I said, yes. And he said, I think we could probably make something work. And so he just invited me in and I sat with him for a couple hours a week over the course of a few months and just really listened to how he was mentoring couples who he would call on the phone who were interested in developing character in their kids.

 

  

Yeah.

 

   

And I thought there is something here. This is awesome. There's really a framework for family living that I had never heard of before. And so what I started to do is I started to implement some of these things that Steve was telling others about in my own marriage and family life. And I began to have this amazing transformation. And that's where I said, okay, Lord, like, am I supposed to continue on this path of,

 

seeing one person an hour in my clinical practice, you know, day after day, week after week, or is it time to close the doors and just go all in on coaching parents in this new framework for family living? And the answer was really clear. I actually, you know, I don't hear anything audible from God, like the words, but I really got this message. It is dead. What? It is dead. Yeah, your practice is dead. It's over. Like, close it down.

 

  

Mm-hmm.

 

   

And so it was actually very comforting to receive that message and kind of that permission to just let go of something I'd been at for 20 years and to pivot and use my skills in a different way. So I joined family as a character, I got out of the theology program and it's been on ever since for like four years.

 

  

That's awesome. Well, and I think what we really resonated with too, with you Jordan, is I think in a lot of type of ways people hear about parenting with kids, it's a lot of focus on behavior the kid's doing and ways in which to stop that behavior, extinguish that behavior or whatever, right? Where really what we connected so deeply with you, and it sounds like what you're doing at Family's a Character, is that raising kids is a way that can transform us into being better couples.

 

in regards to our marriage, it can strengthen our marriage, also make us just better humans in general. And I'd love that that's kind of how in everything I've seen you do and talk about, Sara and I are really aligned with that, that we really believe change starts with us first as the adults. And then with the way we see the kids difficulties, the conflicts with the kids really transforms how we approach it. And so when you think about all these things in regards to character, like I wanna...

 

I wanna work together as a team with my wife and work together with our kids to co-create a family we want and that forming characters, that whole process. And that's why all this conflict is there. That's why all these issues arise. Cause we're trying to become humans of character.

 

   

Yes, you are exactly right, Kyle. We really believe that your family is the most important team you'll ever be part of. And so why wouldn't you put intention behind building the character of your team? Characters being developed in your family every day, whether you're intentional about it or not. It just, you know, depending on how intentional you are, really kind of speaks to the type of character in your kids and yourselves.

 

  

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

   

And so we really believe in intentional parenting, Like creating a true plan, getting order back in your life and functioning as a team. When you think about, you know, a team, sports team, right? They huddle up all the time. They huddle up many times during the game. They have practices that are coached by usually two leaders that have their best interest at heart. They'll challenge them and push them to their limits, but also

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yep, yep, yep.

 

   

want to make sure that they're united together and that there's a sense of that unity and that camaraderie and the team. And so I think, you know, in generations past, there's been a lot of division between parents and kids. And that's been kind of a source of pride. And so we're like, let's break that down and like come around side of our kids, you know, in a huddle kind of fashion.

 

  

Yes. Yes. Mmm. That's good. Yes. Wow.

 

  

Yeah, I love the vision of that too, where he went, Kyle was talking about stopping things and, and, and what you just mentioned about separating, you know, here's the parents, here's the kids, but I love the idea of, the coming together and the forward looking instead of let's stop this.

 

keep that away, but it's what are we gonna build? Where are we going and going together? And I love that about your vision and what you're doing, because it's a coming together and it's a creating something and it's moving forward towards something versus avoiding and stopping. It's like, where are we going and where are we going together? And I love that piece of it. Well, I was even thinking as you use the kind of sports metaphor, is there used to be that in sports or really us against them?

 

there was the coaches and then there was the players and the players were always below. But what you've even seen in sports in general, as this stuff has evolved, I think in families is you've seen like, no, we're for you. Like we're there to develop you, to help you become something more, you know? And I think a lot of athletes are really like interested in that. They're like, I don't wanna just win a game, but I wanna become a better person. So I love that metaphor for the family picture as well.

 

   

Yes, that made me think of, know, instead of just being told what to do all the time, there's this sense of, you know, I'll do it first, and then we do it together, and then you do it, right? And so it's that kind of almost Montessori philosophy or that positive parenting philosophy where it's, you know, yes, I'm the leader, and it's my job to model for you, but

 

  

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

  

Yeah, yep.

 

   

The idea is to pass it along to you so you have as much information as I do so that you are prepared when you leave the nest so that you can thrive as an adult and you can be part of a family and part of a team because you're going to need to be for the rest of your life.

 

  

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if I can jump on that Jordan, I'm even thinking as you're helping me form out this metaphor is I'm thinking like you wouldn't want to win at all costs. You know, like, like, like an athlete doesn't just want to win. Like how you win is important. And really the ends don't justify the means. So really whether a team wins or loses, although we love to win, watch our teams win, how we win, I think is even more important.

 

   

Yeah.

 

   

Right.

 

  

So you knew if my team lost, but they played a certain way they played with intention. They played with character, right? I wouldn't want my team just to win. Just being crazy. Just cheating, right? Doing whatever they could. we want but who cares if we cheated, you know, like it's in the same way I think as parents, that's what we feel too. We have an end goal. We have an ending to this road trip called life that we want to eventually get to. But how that road trip happens is more important to us than even whether we get to that destination.

 

   

Yes. Yes.

 

   

You're so right. You're so right. And that's why, you know, if you, if you can implement this like weekly family huddle that gets you down the field, you know, it may not have massive benefits in the moment or for the next week, but if you stack up these huddles that consist of these three behaviors, then over time you are, you're so inches from the end zone, you know? So we're also about the long game.

 

  

Mm-hmm.

 

  

Yeah. Yep.

 

   

Right? Not just these parenting hacks where you're trying to, like you said, stop behavior, timeouts, this, this and that. But it's like, let's, let's show up for each other as an intentional team each week. And eventually we're moving the ball down the field together towards the end zone.

 

  

Yes.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

  

You had this great picture that you were telling me in our conversation where you realize this that the family may be needed to be getting together to intentionally talk about being on the same team because you thought they were but they weren't and some of that stuff was you almost accidentally making that less likely to be the case. So could you share that with me kind of that realization you had?

 

   

Yes, completely. I remember it like it was yesterday. My daughter said, like, we didn't even really know, like, our marriage was in trouble until our four-year-old daughter said, Mom, I don't think Dad wants to live here.

 

I was like, what? I'm a clinical counselor. Just hours before she said that, I had just gotten home from work and I was at my office seeing clients all day and I remember pulling down the street towards my house and I spotted my house and this sense of dread just kind of came over me. And I thought, how am I going to do this? know, the sun was setting. It was about 630 in the evening. I thought, I got round two ahead of me.

 

Now I got to go in here and make dinner and clean up dishes and get people in their homework and into bed and bath time and all this stuff. And I just remember feeling like I just had nothing left. But I did like we always do. You just pack it up and go inside. Well, as I'm pushing the door open to my laundry room from the garage, I'm like pushing past backpacks and shoes and coats and homework on the ground.

 

  

Yeah. Yeah.

 

   

This anxiety is just rising up in me and I'm like, my gosh, these people. I round the corner and I just start barking out orders immediately. Pick up your clothes. Has nobody started their homework? Why are there still dishes in the sink from breakfast? And my kids just start scattering like cockroaches. I mean, they are gone. Watch out, monster mom has arrived.

 

  

Yeah, get out of her way, she's here! Go! Yes! Yes.

 

   

And so then I went, whoa, okay, this is a little out of control. I got to reconstitute myself because we got to eat. So my husband's finishing some stuff up in the office and he kind of comes tiptoeing out like, whoa, okay, it's one of those nights, you know? And we start making dinner and getting stuff on the table and cleaning it up. And I'm just kind of like passive aggressive, you know? I'm kind of slamming the cupboard doors a little harder than normal and just so resentful that this is...

 

  

Hahaha!

 

  

Yeah.

 

   

how it's going and it was crazy Kyle and Sara because I remember feeling this sense of disgust towards my kids as I'm looking at the mess but then instantly it was a sense of disgust for myself because I thought who are they but like this reflection of our leadership you know this is coming from us. Yes so we get things going for the evening and I take my daughter up to

 

  

Yeah. Yeah.

 

  

Yeah. Yeah.

 

  

Sure. Yeah, we are failing them. Yeah.

 

   

give her a bath and I'm washing her hair and she's got her eyes closed and she just out of the blue says, mom, I don't think dad wants to live here anymore. I don't think he wants to move, but I don't think he wants to live here. And then her eyes just popped open and it was like, okay, I'm ready to get out of the bath now. And I'm

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

That's right.

 

   

Did anyone else hear that? What was that? You know? And so I just dried her off, know, went and said prayers, tucked her into bed. But then I was thinking like, what four-year-old says something like that, that's a very sophisticated kind of thought process or idea. If she didn't actually experience some division or separation between my husband and I. So I go into the bedroom and I'm like, Josh,

 

  

Yeah, yeah.

 

   

Are you thinking about leaving? And he's like, what? He says, why do you ask that? You guys are therapists. You know, when you ask a question and someone responds with the question, it's not good. I was like, well, this is what our daughter said. And he said, that's interesting. He said, I'm not thinking about leaving, but you're just not very fun to live with.

 

  

Hmm, well, yeah. I said, yeah.

 

   

dagger number two for the night, right? I'm like, but at the same time, it's like I wouldn't agree with him immediately. I said, you're so right. I don't even like who I am right now. I know I'm not fun to live with. No one on this team is having fun. And that's when I got that that image of our family as a team.

 

  

Mm-hmm.

 

   

And it was like we all lived under one roof, you know, we all were wearing the same color jersey with the same Langdon name on the back, but we were all doing our own thing. And so I had this visual of us being like out on this football field and the whistle is blown and the ball snapped and I like grabbed the ball and I head down the field towards the end zone and I'm just going as hard as I can and I'm like.

 

bobbing and weaving around all this stuff that's coming at me, all these stressors and these, you know, these big people just like coming for me. And in my desperation, I kind of like fall out on the field and I'm looking to pass pitch the ball to my husband or to my kids. And I look back and nobody's there. The whole field is empty. And so then, then I kind of glance over to the sidelines. I'm like, where are my people? I need help. And they're all on the sidelines.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Hmm.

 

   

in the sense that I have put them there.

 

  

Yeah, you've kind of told him go sit down. I've got this. Yes.

 

   

Yeah, I've got this. And so it just became clear to me that I had all these valuable players on my team that were ready to come in that I had over time just continued to bench to say, you know, I've got this, I've got this. No, I'll take care of that. Or as moms, as we often do, right? It's just easier if I clean that mess up because we're in a hurry or I don't have time to teach you how to do that.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yes, yep.

 

   

So I'm just going to take it on myself.

 

It's a disaster because then then you're you're burnt out, right? So then you have what we call responsibility burnout and you're resentful towards your husband. remember kind of catching this glimpse of like my husband like over there waving at me like, hello, is there ever going to be intimacy again? Do you see me? You know, and I'm like, who are you looking at me? I know you're not looking at me because I'm, I'm burnt out. I've just run down the field a hundred thousand times while I was being a ball hog.

 

  

Hahaha!

 

  

Yes, yes. Yes.

 

   

but he feels really badly when we talk about this because he's like, I kind of saw you burning out and I would step in and try to help. But immediately when you said you got it, it was hard for me to, to, you know, come back at you and say like, no, you really don't. You know, I wanted to trust that this was something that you were taking on seriously as a wife and a mom. And it seemed like you wanted to really, you know, do all these things, but

 

  

Hmm.

 

   

But then I was getting this feedback that you were burning out and like, all of a sudden it was becoming, know, where our kids were scattering like cockroaches and me too when you came in the door, you know? So we agreed that there were things that both of us could have done differently. I could have raised my hand for help and just gotten, you know, like, man, I want us to do this together. And instead of just kind of being reactive to the situation and taking it all on myself.

 

  

Yes. Yep.

 

  

Yeah.

 

   

And so that evening, actually, my husband jokes about this too. He's like, yeah, after, you know, after I said that to you, I think I pretty much like fell asleep and was snoring, you know? Like, yeah, yeah, you did. My daughter did and you did and I was up all night like.

 

  

Yeah, yeah.

 

   

What?

 

  

Yeah, they drop these bombshells and they're like, I glad I got that off my chest. Thanks. Yeah. See you later. Yeah.

 

   

Yes, but I see it as like one of those blessings in disguise, you know, where I had no animosity towards them. They were simply the messenger. And if they wouldn't have said that or had the courage to be the vessel for that message, we would still be in that spot today. And so that night I'm thinking, okay, I could just like escape away to this hotel in Santa Fe and just have like a quick like reset, right? Like a mom reset, get some good food, lots of sleep.

 

And then I hear this still small voice, you are right where you need to be home. And I'm like, how do you argue with that? Okay, fine. I'll stay. I'll do the work, you know? But I mean, we, we tried all kinds of stuff. You guys, we, we got the, the latest and greatest chore charts, right? And we're going to get our kids starting to pitch in and help out. Yes. Yes. We tried every parenting hack you can imagine. And

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

That will fix it. That's right. That will fix it.

 

   

those things work for like a week or two, that's the thing. So there's this like false sense of, yeah, but then we would just go back to me kind of taking things on and my husband stepping back. And so it wasn't until we kind of stumbled upon this idea that, well, if we look at our calendar and see like what we're actually doing, we can tell where like we are short on help.

 

  

Sure. Yep. It's like a band-aid.

 

  

Yeah, yeah.

 

   

for different areas of our lives. And so my husband and kind of started looking at the calendar together and it was just something that we hadn't done before. I was the keeper of the calendar. I added and subtracted things from the calendar based on emails from the school or whatever have you. And he would glance at it or go, hey, what are we doing tonight? Or do we have something going this weekend? It's like.

 

Yes, we do. And so then I'd be telling him and then I'd be telling our three kids everything that was happening for the week. And again, we noticed this big spotlight on me, right? Like everybody's coming to me for all the information. And so we decided, let's just like expose this calendar, right? This is not something that I have to hoard to myself. I don't have some special skill that keeps me the social, you know, calendar manager or anything.

 

And that started really instantly kind of transforming things because all of a sudden that mental load that I was carrying in my mind, because we do keep the activities of our family on our mind, but also just the load of what visually is on our calendar that I was seeing, but they weren't, was now distributed among everyone in the family.

 

And so they began to have some kind of empathy and compassion too around like, whoa, this is what she looks at every day. This is what she's carrying around trying to figure out who's going to get where when, you know? And then my husband started really pitching in ideas. He's like, well I can take the kid. Man, I could drop off three days a week. How about I do that? And I'm do you mean that? He's like, well, yeah. Now that he's able to see, you know,

 

  

you

 

   

Visually he can pitch in in ways that I would have just taken on myself and then our kids started pitching in on Ideas. I remember one time I said well Lincoln you're supposed to be at at wrestling and Annie you're supposed to be at gymnastics and dad's got a meeting and Parker's not driving yet so I can only be at one place one time One of you is gonna have to give up your practice and that's just how it goes and sometimes we just have to sacrifice and and he said well mom

 

  

Yeah. Yeah.

 

   

I have an idea. What about Bo's mom, Erin? She, Mrs. Hom-Berrier, she could pick me up. You know, this seems like a small thing. good. So Lincoln pitched an idea, but he all of a sudden became a valued part of the team. He, he, he solved a problem for us and then he had a stake in the game. So he really felt like, my idea was heard. It was helpful to us. It was so cool. So that's really what

 

  

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

  

Yeah, that's so beautiful.

 

   

started transforming our family. It's just on Sundays, looking at the calendar together and problem solving and figuring out how we could help each other as a united team to get everything that we needed to get done, done in a peaceful way or, you know, partially peaceful way and really all be contributing to what was going on.

 

  

Well, and I just love, think probably tons of families can relate to what you're saying right now, right? So many feeling overwhelmed, feeling, how do we do this? And I love where that, where you, you're pointing out that actually, you know, I think as a mommy, like, okay, I just need to take care of this. And it's almost, it's almost a problem. It's like, I'm not good enough if I can't do it. instead of what you're highlighting is the beauty.

 

   

Yes.

 

  

of everyone coming together as a team and to see what that gives your kids to be seen, be heard, to be a contributor to this whole thing. Just think about the beautiful things they're learning and the way they feel inside when they have stepped up and like, I can own this too. Look at what I'm capable of doing. I can have good ideas. I can do this. And then they're to be able to take that to the next phase of life. And that's just really...

 

amazing to see and to know that it's not just a, it's not a, I can't do this. It's like, wow, if I try to keep all of this, we're all missing out. Yeah, you're missing out on opportunities. And there's so much there that we could enjoy together and contribute together. So I love how you're bringing light to that. And I'm really curious about the three C's.

 

So I'm like, how did this look for you? What happened next? I want to hear that Jordan. I do want to make sure the listeners hear something. There's a couple of things you said that I wanted to highlight in your story. One was when you came in the door, there was this kind of underlying belief that they're against me. All of these people are against me. know, nobody hears for me. I've got to do it all on my own. You know, but what started to happen when you intentionally do something like on a weekly basis, come together, do a family huddle.

 

   

Yes.

 

   

Yes.

 

  

Why would I do that? Unless I believe we're all for each other. We're all actually on the same team. We're not on opposing teams. And then the second part I hope listeners heard was you really started moving from just independent people in a household just doing whatever they want to interdependence. You started to create this interdependency within the family that we're all here for a reason. Like all of us are there to help the other. And I just think so many families miss out on that, that that understanding kids want

 

to be interdependent, interdependent with you. They want to be a helpful tool in the running of the family. It feels great. It feels really good. It boosts their self-esteem, their confidence, all that stuff. And so just wanted it listeners, I hope you heard that was that was the big shift. And Sara and I've talked about in the past as a couple, you gotta believe that we are for each other. We're not against each other. But then also the end game is for all of us to bring our strengths to the table to help everybody in the family succeed. And that's kind of what you were.

 

highlighting at the end where everybody started to become more interdependent.

 

   

Yes, you hit the nail on the head. We went from those kind of divided players and me being the ball hog and everyone else just kind of going off to the corner of the gym, you know, or the field to this like, we are for each other. We are united. We even name ourselves Team Langdon and that has an impact on the family, right? We are one team and our last name matters. It's what unifies us, right? Yeah.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah. Yep.

 

Yes, yeah. Mm-hmm. It does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

 

   

Let's get into the three C's because I say that the three C's are the what saved my marriage, okay? When I didn't even realize it needed saving. And I want to underscore that because a lot of you who are listening may not realize that your marriage needs saving too. And it's not your fault. It's just that we get going and we're blocking and tackling as things come up. And all of a sudden we're looking cross-eyed at our spouse like, how many years has it been?

 

  

Love to hear it, man, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

   

and we're at it like this and we're really divided. So take this as an opportunity to kind of do an assessment of your own marriage and family dynamics and how unified are we or how divided and how can we use these three C's to get us unified and back on track. So number one, C is consistently showing up for each other. So consistent connection, right? When you meet up together at a scheduled time once a week,

 

  

Yeah, yeah

 

   

you keep that consistent. You don't do this like well maybe this week we'll do it on a Tuesday, maybe that no we can't do it. No you say hey Sundays are a great day that we're all home, we're preparing for the week anyway in our own sort of ways. How about we rally together as a team and consistently show up at 6 30 in the living room every Sunday or whatever time you choose. But that consistent connection is what builds the culture of your family. Your kids are like

 

  

Yep. Yep. Yep.

 

   

Man, my parents continue to show up in this living room every Sunday.

 

  

Yeah, yeah. They continue to communicate somebody families we know, kids are out of the loop. You know, kids on I'm helping and at the at the practice, I'll be like, Hey, what are you guys doing this weekend? I don't know. They have no idea like what's going on. And a lot of stuff is just thrown on them. And they're like, What are we doing? Why are we doing that? Right. But instead, you're you're building trust by consistently showing up, we start to trust that I'll have a voice, I'm gonna be in the know, I'm part of the VIP group. Yeah.

 

   

Yes.

 

   

Yes, you got it exactly right. And then the second C is just clarifying the calendar, right? So once you've connected consistently, you show up in that space and that time, then you actually expose the calendar so everyone can see it. And the best is for dad to lead the family through the family huddle.

 

because that really gets him engaged. And when you teach something, you know it better, right? So if that's not something that you're used to as a father is being really in tune with the family calendar, it's easy if it's written out for you and mom, we're good support folks, right? We can kind of leverage you up and help you understand what's going on the first couple of weeks. And then you got it. Like you can take it and fly with it. Then the people that are listening, the...

 

  

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah.

 

   

Children in the room, your spouse really looks to you as the leader of the family. So that makes a difference too. But this clarifying the calendar, like you said, Kyle, like a lot of people don't know what's going on for us before we were sharing our calendar with other people. We got so bogged down in the day to day that I remember my mother-in-law calling about like, you know, Thanksgiving plans and it was like October one. And I'm like, what Thanksgiving?

 

  

Thank

 

   

How dare you ask about that? We haven't even gotten to, you know, October 10th. I can't see beyond this week, you know? Now that we're in the rhythm of having these weekly huddles, we plan out an entire year in advance. Like my husband and I are looking forward to planning all of 2025, like next month, because it clears up the fog out in front of you. And then you can cast this vision and make...

 

  

Yes, yes.

 

Yeah, Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

  

Yeah.

 

   

long-term goals for your family. We've been to 49 of the 50 states and I'm convinced the only way we're able to do that is because we take care of the weekly business of the family together. You know, the last one is common goal. Like you said, we're coming together. the last state, Alaska.

 

  

awesome.

 

  

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what's the last one? What's the one you haven't gotten? Yeah.

 

No, no, no, what's the last state? The important thing here. Yes, I want to hear it. I was curious. You got me to 49.

 

   

We have not been to Alaska yet. That's on the radar. Yes.

 

  

Okay, okay. There you go. There you go. I figured it was I was gonna say Alaska. That makes sense. And what I want to add to is I think lots of times when you're doing that talk, right, where the couple is meeting together with the kids presenting the plan, you're pointing out that in a lot of cases, it's pretty typical for the mom to have that calendar.

 

to, unfortunately, because the dad's kind of checked out when it comes to what's going on with school, what's going on with with play dates, what's going on, like, and the mom is taking charge of that. And I think it's easy for the dad to just be incompetent and just be like, that's not my deal. That's your deal. Right. And so I think in doing that, what it does, like you said, what you felt it led to some leads to some empathy to have just empathy of like, wow, you

 

are doing a lot of stuff. You've got a lot of things that you're coordinating on top of all the work you're doing on top of, and too often in our culture, it is just like, well, that's just your job, your mom. just like, and hopefully we want to be a part of that conversation of changing that, that we are sharing the weight as a couple of this calendar. And sometimes even to, as a couple say, we're doing too much. Maybe we need to cut some things out, you know? So, so I want to encourage, you know, all the listeners who listening, that's kind of.

 

I think a big end game there too is both people not only are more competent to talk about the calendar, but also take responsibility for it, for the good, the bad, whether we're too busy or there's more we wanna add, and we can all work together to decide.

 

   

Yes, and you are both licensed professional counselors. You know how this goes with couples. One of the things that I hear couples say when I ask them like, hey, how do you manage your family calendar? Like, how do you communicate what's going on in the calendar? Nine times out of 10, the dad says, she just tells me what's going on and then I do what she tells me. Think about how that plays out over time. your wife, your woman is telling you what to do.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

   

And you just have to do it. You have to get in your truck and go to pick up when she says, and then you have to change your plans and go, oops, they, know, that, that really wrecks a marriage.

 

  

But it puts that person, whether it's the husband or wife into another space of being a child, right? And so, you know, it really is like when it comes to our kids soccer stuff, and when it comes to you, we'll have conversations like, Hey, did you put that on the calendar yet? You want me to I'll take care of that. So then like, we're talking like, we've got a tournament this weekend, and like, we're still deciding, are we going to go as a family? Are we going to go separate and having those kind of discussions over what's best for our family at this time? And we'll have those discussions throughout this week over what is best going to

 

   

Totally.

 

  

bring our family together, you know, or just make us more busy, you know? So we've got to make those decisions as a couple.

 

   

Yes.

 

Yes, and that is such a good point, you know, 10 eyes on the calendar are better than two, right? And our kid said, whoa, our son, our oldest son is gone for a couple of weeks. And so none of his work schedule was on our calendar. And so when we did our family huddle yesterday, our middle son says, wow, look at all that white space on our calendar.

 

  

Yeah, yeah.

 

  

Things have been really freed up. Yes.

 

   

Yeah, and so it does really help, you know, it helps to have more eyes on the calendar because you want to identify white space. Friday, we don't have any plans. my goodness. Let's have a movie night, right? So then you schedule in the things that matter to help unify your team.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, Jordan, I think what's great too, when our daughter does babysitting jobs and stuff like for her, I will have to say like, put the address on there, please. So it's not just the babysitter, it's us driving you to the babysitting job. So we can also know and have mental space to understand how long is that going to be there and back and

 

   

Yes, okay Kyle, so you just brought up another point. This helps kids develop executive functioning skills, Thinking, planning ahead. Yes, Sara, you're like picking that up, right? Yes, okay, yeah, so the last C. Okay, so we have connecting consistently. Right. Connecting consistently, clarifying the calendar, and then a common goal.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah. It's not Alaska. Yeah, it's not Alaska. Yeah.

 

  

Yeah,

 

   

Identifying one goal. Once you've looked at the calendar, it's really easy to identify one thing y'all can be working on for the week. Right? If you're running late to things, the common goal may be we're all setting our alarms 15 minutes earlier so we can get out the door on time, less nagging and yelling, right?

 

  

Yes, love that. Woo. Love that, man. Yes. I like that goal.

 

   

Yes. Yes. So, but I tell people don't start with that. Don't start with that. If that feels like too big of a thing, like this whole family huddle, just start with the calendar and then layer things on as time goes on. But the most important thing is to put the huddle on your family calendar. Like actually schedule time on your calendar for the huddle. Because if that doesn't happen, if it doesn't get on the calendar,

 

  

Yeah, of course.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

Yeah.

 

  

It ain't happening. No, no. Yeah. Yeah. It's so like you had pointed out earlier, it's really easy to let those things slide, you know, because you're already so busy. And that feels like, I mean, because I know we actually have a meeting on our calendar that we keep missing. And it's our meeting, you know, because you do you feel like, okay, I mean, we're so busy.

 

   

It ain't happening. Nothing happens. It's not on the calendar.

 

  

We can just, we'll just put that off. It'll be fine. We'll, we'll catch it next week. And then next week comes around and it gets put off. and all the things you're talking about are dependent on that huddle. know, none of that's going to happen if you guys aren't coming together and aren't setting that goal. And then I imagine following up, like how did last week go, go, what do we want to change for this coming week? None of that, all of that pretty soon slides through your fingers and you're right back where you started without it.

 

   

Yes!

 

  

And what I love about it using the sports metaphor again is that's what's a good team does. A good team spends time after the game that weekend, looking over the previous week. How did practice go? Review tape. Yeah, well, how did the game go? Well, what do we need to do differently this week in practice to make sure those same things don't happen again or to make sure they do happen again, you know? And so I love that idea that that's something going back to the us versus them type of way parenting used to be, you know, it was more like we're up here, you're down there.

 

   

Yes.

 

  

is those kinds of conversations were not happening. So there was not a weekly huddle where we had a voice to talk about what we're working on. Because there was a risk that the kids might say, mom, dad, I want you to work on this. Or could we work on being kinder when we ask for things instead of bossing everybody around? Like that was a risk most parents never thought of taking. So I think in the huddles, there is this really cool like we're co-creating the family we want. So weekly.

 

   

Right.

 

   

Right.

 

Yes.

 

  

bring this stuff up. Let's talk about how we could change this or work on this or grow in this area. And then weekly the next Sunday you talk again, how did we do? You know, did we achieve that goal? And I just love that idea. Yeah.

 

   

Yes.

 

   

Yes, yes, you've got this man. Team Wester in the house, baby.

 

  

Okay, can I ask you start doing this? What was your family's response? What have you seen now that you've been doing this for a while? Because you know, if I'm a family thinking, okay, I'm not sure my kids would be on board or how's that look? Or are they gonna like that? You know, what have you seen happen over time?

 

   

Yes.

 

   

Yes, okay, so so many things. First of all, we've done over 250 family huddles. We've been at this since 2019. And yes, a little experience. And our kids will not let us go a single week without one. That's huge because they experience the benefit of knowing what's coming next and then really, you know, leaning into developing kind of a plan for themselves so that they're prepared.

 

  

Nice. A little experiment.

 

  

Nice. Yeah. Yeah.

 

   

And they've seen so much growth in their own independence and this courage and confidence that they, you know, they are in the know and that they are a valued member of our team. we've exactly. Yes. And just this idea that, you know, they're contributing, they're solving problems. They are kind of like drawing up a play for us.

 

you know, and suggesting that play for the game is like really.

 

  

Yeah. That's cool. No, and that's like, like in those make a wish videos. That's like a cool thing. Like a kid gets to draw a play up for Patrick Mahomes or somebody. And that's so cool for a kid to know, I drew that play up and they just got a touchdown. And so then that they get to feel like I can do that. I can create plays I can Yeah, I think that's really powerful.

 

   

Yes!

 

   

Yes, we have seen less sibling rivalry by far and this this sense of connectedness and like playfulness between our kids. So before everybody was kind of at each other and it was always a lot of tattling on each other and this person's doing that and you could just feel the division. But since calling ourselves Team Langdon,

 

  

Yeah.

 

   

coming together, being consistent and showing up for each other and then really weighing in on this calendar and then coming together with a common goal has happened. There's just this softness, there's this lightness and around dinner, it's like, let's all see how quick we can get the kitchen cleaned up. Who would have ever thought that that was possible before? It was nuts before. But it's kind of like we know we're all going down the end zone together, so.

 

  

Yeah, yeah, I know. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

   

So we're going to make this happen anytime we can. And Kyle, you and Sara went to Disneyland, I think recently, and you were talking about, you know, just like being vulnerable and being like, man, I screwed up here. You know, this is, and your team came rallying around you, right? So it takes that division where we're like, we have the power and what we say goes, and you don't have any say in here, you know, down to like, okay, I'm struggling, you know, and,

 

  

Yep, we did.

 

  

They did. Yep. Yep.

 

   

gives our kids permission to call us out on things that we said were important to us.

 

  

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, and I just think that that's a big part of it is kids when they're, when it's just an independent culture in a family is everybody's just fighting for themselves. And everybody has seen a sports team that does that where the wide receiver is just trying to get his or, you know, the running backs just trying to go and they're just all fighting for a benefits them. And that does not work to create a healthy team.

 

And so when you're in a culture where we realize my power isn't just to benefit me, it's to benefit us, then that's where there's no, how does sibling rivalry reach that goal? It doesn't, right? And so we, we, we can speak to that as well. It wasn't easy. was definitely hard to be intentional to get there, but we see that now with our kids as well, where it's immediate like, Hey, if we want to do this, we need to get this done. And then they're like, cool, what could we do? And then like even now it used to be frustrating years ago when I

 

I get groceries and I pull up to the driveway, but can you ask the kids to get out of here and help? But now they're just running out, you know, they're running out there. They're grabbing it all three of them and we're, it's just one load and we're done. And they're like, that was awesome. I like that. You know, and it was, but it was intentional about that's something we would have put on the goals. Hey, when we show up from the store, we'd like everybody to run out and just get the groceries and then let's put them away and then we can move on to the next thing. You know, and so just those kinds of conversations really bring about team unity.

 

   

Yes!

 

  

and bring about that interdependent culture you wanna have in your family. So hey, Jordan, if you could tell our listeners, where can they find more about you? How can they hear more about what you're doing and the work you're doing at Families of Character?

 

   

You've got it.

 

   

Absolutely. So our main place where we hang out is our website, familiesofcharacter.com. So there you can go and get your free huddle guide on our main page. Yes. And then if you're looking for more resources on how to get your family huddle started this week, we've got a digital huddle up guide. So we've got our best podcasts and downloadables. If you're like me and want to...

 

  

Great.

 

   

pretty PDF that can guide you through your family huddle that you can just have in reference. We've got that available for you in the free guide and then in our huddle up digital guide as well. And then we're on the socials, right? We're on Instagram and Facebook. And then of course, host our own podcast called The Families of Characters Show. We're so glad to have been able to interview you guys and have Art of Raising Humans on The Families of Characters Show.

 

This is a beautiful collaboration. You guys are all about marriage and family and being for each other. And that's what we're about too.

 

  

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It will include all of that stuff in the show notes too. So people can check that out, get that PDF, be a really great tool to help you intentionally do this. Well, we want to thank you so much, Jordan. we're jealous you're in Colorado. Wish we could be there with you in the mountains, but thank you so much for joining us and sharing all this insight with us. And, we're excited about collabing with you in the future.

 

   

Fantastic.

 

  

And so I hope you're tonight hope your busy day goes well, because I know you've got a busy day ahead of you. But but I hope it goes well and everything works out if you know really fluid today, but we love the insight hope more families, if you're listening, go check this out, get that PDF, start doing that you know, this this Sunday, this will drop on a Monday, you know, start planning for what that Sunday is going to look like or that Saturday and just get it going. It doesn't it's just imperfect progress.

 

   

Thank you.

 

  

You know, the kids at first are going to be like, what, what are we doing? But just like invite them into it. They don't even know how exciting and good it's going to be for them.

 

   

Exactly. Stay the course, be consistent, show up, and then layer on from there. It'll be awesome. Go teams.

 

  

Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much, Jordan. Thank you.

 

   

Thanks so much for having me guys.