Does Your Family Need a Year Off?

I like how author Joanne Kraft describes the hectic schedule she used to run herself ragged trying to keep. She swept through her days like a “busy mom hurricane.”

Can you relate? Do you feel like you’re always running? Is your “busy” switch permanently in the “on” position, and you just go, go, go?

If so, maybe you can also relate to what Joanne’s busyness cost her. Like the time she skipped her son’s baseball game for potato salad.

At the time, Joanne admits she’d say yes to just about everything. So when somebody asked her to make potato salad for a function, she of course agreed. She skipped her son’s game, stayed home to make potato salad, and missed watching her son hit his first – and only – home run.

Missed opportunities like that led Joanne and her family to take what they call a “radical sabbatical.” They took an entire year off from the jam-packed schedule of activities that required them to keep the “busy” faucet wide open so much of the time. And they used the extra time those changes afforded them to reconnect as a family.

They continued with activities like family devotions and dinner around the table, and each month they did a family field trip. One month was to a movie. Another was to a daffodil farm.

The whole point was to detach from the normal slate of activities that took them away from each other and to focus more on things that brought them together.

Radical doesn’t have to mean “extreme,” but it should mean “revolutionary.”

On our program today, Joanne Kraft will share how to make a revolutionary change in your home. She’ll tell you how her family’s year-long break positively impacted her marriage and her children. They had time for each other again. They weren’t just slapping high fives every day as they went their separate ways.

A lot of you moms are reading this just before you head out for a full day or in the waning moments at the end of the day. If you feel like you’re running on a gerbil wheel, and you need to make a change, we’ll have some answers for where to start on our radio program “Giving Your Family a Year-Long Break” with author Joanne Kraft.

I hope you’ll join us. Find us on your local radio station, listen online, or download our free phone app.