Civility

It’s no surprise that a majority of Americans say they distrust the government or have a negative view of it. The media paints an ugly portrait of the current political climate as “being a unique time in America”–one that is on the brink of something catastrophic. The truth is, every era throughout history has been a unique time and every era to come will be a unique one as well. We are always charting new territory with new ideas and new ways to do things–each with its own set of problems and new leaders entering the arena to try and tackle them. Historically, we’ve had some pretty unique leaders that have made Americans believe we’ve seen better days. We’ve always rallied through and survived. Checks and balances exist for a reason and there are better ways to survive an uncertain time than just grumbling and whining our way through it. That brings us to our first challenge, and perhaps the toughest, of the year in getting you to be more civic-minded. “All you can change is yourself. But sometimes, that changes everything!” -Gary Goldstein  

  If you’re anything like us, you’re never quite sure how to approach sensitive topics with your kids. For instance, how do you talk to them about things like the deadly church shooting that happened in Texas over the weekend? Do you say anything at all? What if their friends talk to them about it first? If you’re looking for a helpful resource to get you started, we’ve got you covered.

“Can you believe they’d hang a sign like that in an elementary school?!” my neighbor fumed. I was embarrassed to admit that I had a hard time noticing what was wrong with the sign. “Hate has no home here,” it read. The sign hung prominently in the lobby of our neighborhood elementary school. It seemed like an okay message to me to spread to a bunch of kids… hate is never the answer. So why not teach the kids such a valuable life lesson? What was wrong with that?

Backpack… check! Sharpened pencils… check! New shoes… check! Manners… ch… Wait… what?! We often go above and beyond equipping our kids with all the material goods for a new school year. But what about in the manners department? Are our kids well-equipped with those? We don’t need to start listing the behavior and social graces seemingly absent in kids these days. You could probably string off a long list yourself. What, though, would teachers think, if you sent your kids back to school with a whole new level of refinement?! Our nation’s first president, George Washington, learned a long list of rules of civility (110 to be precise) when he was a youngster. He made it a point to incorporate them into every aspect of his life. Consequently, he had a stalwart reputation of being a complete gentleman. He didn’t talk back to authority. He warmly welcomed the “new kid” to the room and he even crossed his legs just right when he sat down. These days, in an era of instant-everything, it seems manners often go by the wayside. But, what if our kids tried out some of the manners President Washington lived by? All 110 of those rules are now in a book called George Washington’s Rules […]

  Can I tell you something? I hated high school. Like really, really hated it. Some people thrive and blossom in high school and remember it as the best years of their life. But it was not that time or place for me. Let’s just say I was a work in progress. I was shy and self-conscious with a lot of learning about myself to do, and high school isn’t exactly a time of life I look back on fondly. So when a brief thought popped into my head recently that I should reach out to my former high school yearbook teacher, I kinda didn’t pay it much attention. It would have been so easy. “Look her up. Send a note,” the thought persisted.

In an era of modern conveniences and instant communication and gratification, it seems manners often go by the wayside. George Washington lived by rules of civility. Why can’t we? The rules he modeled his life after were created for a different era, but we can easily modernize them for our own seemingly uncivilized world. Modernizing George Washington’s Rules of Civility I used to make treats every week for my husband’s Sunday School class. He taught a group of a dozen or so pre-teens. When my husband reluctantly started relaying to me the things some of them would do or say if they didn’t like what I made, I immediately stopped baking them anything. The behavior ranged from spitting out what they didn’t like in the garbage can in front of the entire class to even complaining about something I didn’t make them. While this might leave you wondering about the quality of my baked goods… I can assure you they were all tried and true. So, I honestly wasn’t offended by the fact that they didn’t like what I made (you don’t like almond flavoring in your chocolate swig cookies… fine, more for me); What really upset me was the fact that they were so blatantly […]

Teach your Children to Serve and Spread Some Love this Valentine’s Day By Brittany It’s no secret that we live in a world where we are encouraged to think of ourselves as often as possible. There are entire books devoted to the subject, appropriately titled things like The Me Generation and The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. My kids are particularly fond of The Minosaur, a children’s book that paints a fairly accurate picture of the “mine, mine, mine” attitude of today’s children. There’s article after article that claim putting your own happiness first is the only way to live and that being selfish isn’t rude, but that it’s necessary. I disagree. In fact, I am on a mission to curb that type of attitude in my own children. I want to teach them that doing kind things for other people without being asked first, leads to happiness. Ultimately, that life isn’t about just them and that people need our help. It’s this type of thinking that I believe will fill our world with more love and less of that snarky hate we’ve been seeing in abundance lately. So, what’s the best way we can implement a service-oriented attitude in our children? Here are four […]

By: Andrea There is a room in the U.S. Capitol building where only senators can enter. Senator Bob Bennett, a republican, used to tell me stories about that room as we’d walk down the long underground tunnels connecting his office building to the Capitol. He would often sit down for lunch in that room with then-Senator Joe Biden, a democrat. “He’d talk about Catholicism, and I’d talk about being a Mormon,” said Sen. Bennett. “Joe Biden knows all about the Mormon church.” Senators often head to that room to escape their staff, eat lunch, or relax in between votes. But, Sen. Bennett explained, over the years the more states elected senators on extreme sides of the aisle, the less cordial and friendly that room became.

  Making Your Voice Heard: Effective Ways to Contact Your Congressman By Brittany Let me guess…there are a few things going on in our country right now that are really concerning to you? You want to do something about it, but you’re not quite sure what to do? Well, it’s your lucky day, because I’ve got some tips that can help you with that. But before I reveal my secrets, I need you to do something for me.

Thoughts on Refugees Coming to America By: Andrea “All Mormons are welcome in Missouri! You’re welcome, too!” I giggled a little bit as I listened to Senator Kit Bond, a Republican senator from Missouri, warmly invite me to his home state. He reeked of tobacco and his thick midwest accent made his invitation sound more like, “All Marmons are welcome in Missour-a!” I was interviewing him for a legacy video I was creating for my boss, Sen. Bob Bennett, whose term was coming to an end that year. Sen. Bond was one of about forty senators and congressman I sat down and chatted with that fall day in 2010. It seemed like an odd thing to say, but there was a lot of history behind his invitation.