POM Couples Retreat

This past weekend was the Power of Moms Couples Retreat that I had posted about. It was such an amazing experience to be in a room with such amazing parents. It was an experience like non other where you are able to discuss and talk about parenting issues with other couples openly. When was the last time you got together with your friends (men included) and had a good discussion on how you can be better parents. Probably never. And it was so fun to hear from all of the dads. They actually have a voice to heard and I found that in our discussion groups, they almost always had more to say than the women. After the retreat, I was talking to Miguel to get his take, and he said it was a neat experience to actually sit and talk with other families on the subject of parenting. Most men never get that kind of opportunity.

(that's us sitting in the very back. Miguel's got the red shirt on.)

 The Eyres are always inspiring and I came away with all new insights this time around about how to build a unified partnership in our parenting efforts. Have you ever asked your spouse what their favorite part of parenting is? What parts do they enjoy doing? Maybe they are the things you don't really like doing and you can just hand that responsibility over to them. For example, I really like to read to the kids. But I've always felt like I was hogging that opportunity and would encourage the kids to go read with dad sometimes to allow him that chance. Well come to find out, he doesn't even like doing it, so there  you go. I'll just take that on and he can take on the jumping on the trampoline and wrestling around with the kids.

We also talked about how to establish a family that functions like any other successful enterprise. What do you need to do that? A good Legal System (rules and consequences), Financial System (a family economy), and a Family Culture (mottos, songs, traditions). Why do people want to work for Pixar, Disney, Google...it's probably the company culture, right? You've got to create something that makes them want to keep coming back, even after they've moved out. We got a ton of ideas and probably one of my favorite parts of the day was the break out discussion groups, where we got to exchange ideas on certain topics that being discussed. Oh, and ask me about Middle Management...that was one of my favorite ideas of the day!

At the end of the day, it was so refreshing to come home and know that Miguel and I were on the same page. We could move forward together. I encourage everyone to save and make it a priority to attend one of these retreats. With or without your spouse. It will change your life and your families life for the better.

Plus I'm super excited, because I'm going to be bringing the Power of Moms to the great state of Georgia next spring (I'm thinking sometime in April), so plan now to attend. It will be awesome!!!