Make Your Family a Team
Adventure on family quests that shape your home into a place of belonging.
Have you ever been on a team?
Think back—at some point, you’ve likely joined forces with others to achieve a goal. I can remember school projects, a 3-on-3 basketball squad, volunteer events, shared business ownership and the list goes on because teamwork is really just a way to think about anything we do with other people.
A good team levels up the abilities of each member while creating space to belong and build personal identity around shared values.
Now imagine applying that same spirit to your family.
By becoming a family team and embarking on family adventures, you can chart a path together toward the legend of “quality time”!
A Former Classroom Teacher’s Quest to Grow Autonomy
Before we go any further, I have to confess that this whole idea of making your family a team is an early childhood educator’s not so secret plan to grow kids’ autonomy (and the rest of ours along with it).
Autonomy is the thing we have when we make decisions & take actions that feel like they belong to us.
To develop autonomy, you need opportunities to try on different experiences, career paths, hobbies…and decide what’s a good fit for you. So ideally, throughout your schooling, you’d be in autonomy supportive environments where you’d have lots of choices & do most things for yourself. A safe space to play with ideas & make mistakes.
But that’s not how school is for most of us right? And that’s because education, as we know it today, grew out of the industrial revolution. Take it from a former 2nd grade teacher who learned it the sad way, public schools were built with productive workers in mind, not self-directed free thinkers.
And we don’t have to dig into the nuance of all that to simply acknowledge that schools weren’t designed to meet your child’s personal, 21st century needs.
I want to change that.
And I think we need to start by changing the stories you & your kids are made to believe about school. I want to show your family the power you have to team up & own your education. And I want to curate the resources you need to build autonomy regardless of your school environment.
Family teams are the best that way I’ve found to start us on that path.
Self-Discovery as a Family Team
One way to think about autonomy is imaging your life as a car with you as the driver. Somewhere in my 30’s, I woke up in the passenger seat of my own little “car” & realized that I couldn’t really remember a time when I had been driving it.
As you can imagine, over the next few years I made a few (dozen) changes in my life and with each one I further committed to owning my choices no matter where they led me. Eventually, I found myself listening to records with a man who gave me space to hear my own voice and who, in time, taught me the magic of a healthy, supportive team.
One of the counterintuitive things about autonomy building is that it's actually an inherently social activity.
You need access to a variety of people, ideas and experiences in order to determine which of them most align with you and you need opportunities to have your beliefs challenged or you can easily get stuck within a small facet of mind or identity.
My husband & I built our relationship on mutual respect for our ability to think & choose for ourselves. We approach life as teammates — with awareness of how much we have to offer each other while striving to remember the agency we have to drive our own “cars” anywhere we choose.
We’re far from perfect communicators, but we find that we can fumble through even the trickiest conversations by trusting the other person to be on our side & listen to learn.
All this (and a ton of research on social connection & self-determination) is why I believe so strongly in the power of family teams.
When you make your family a team, you are really just acknowledging that you all share things like space, time & goals, so it makes sense to work together rather than getting into power struggles.
And when you adventure as a team, you create space to get to know each other and collaborate on ideas for family activities & routines that truly serve each family member’s needs. Most of us know from experience that we are more collaborative & committed in environments where we get to be ourselves & have a voice in what happens day to day.
With the framing of your family team working together to win at the game of life, you can turn even the most ordinary moments into opportunities for connection & growth.
At their core, kids are eager adventurers, so becoming a family team can often look like doing less FOR your kids and enjoying more of your time WITH them.
Why Team Up with Your Family?
Picture your kid(s) happy, engaged, and feeling free to be themselves.
Now imagine yourself next to them, equally enjoying the same activity.
The whole family is there actually, and when you go your own ways after, you notice that everyone seems a little more comfortable in their own skin—a bit more confident & connected.
That’s what comes from being an autonomy supportive family team:
Feeling seen and heard.
Feeling free to be yourself.
Feeling safe to explore and make mistakes.
Feeling like you have a home where you belong.
And those are just the individual wins.
When your family works as a team, everyone benefits & the joy of success is multiplied. Teaming up gives your family the chance to:
DISCOVER your unique values & strengths, building an understanding of how you fit together by encouraging both self & social awareness.
CONNECT through regular check-ins & reduce any sense of working against each other as you begin to notice & share the (invisible) load of your household.
ENJOY time spent together with a mindset of acceptance & play, so you can drop old stories & pick up engaging new ideas that feel like a better fit.
GROW your confidence in yourselves & each other to take on any challenge knowing that you’ve got a safe space to practice & return to for support.
I have lists on lists of the endless potential value of autonomy supportive family teams, because kids taking ownership of their agency & power creates a positive feedback loop that lifts the entire family team’s resilience.
Kids grow autonomy through supportive environments > adults practice autonomy to support their kids in building it > both kids and parents deepen their self & shared understandings through modeling & reminders > the whole family becomes more motivated as the loop continues. (pictured in image below or to the right)
Also, keep in mind that you can have more than one family team and/or honorary members (grandparents, blended/divorced family members, a cool aunt 😉 or uncle, neighborhood friends, etc.)
Autonomy support is like “preventative medicine” for a family team — building a sense of belonging & psychological safety in your home gives you a strong foundation for growing healthy relationships.
Home truly feels like home when we feel seen, heard & understood.
Fun Family Adventures May Be Closer Than You Think
Your family has been adventuring together since the beginning.
You knock out dozens of missions every day.
But what you may be missing out on is the shared mindset that you are doing all of it together as a team. That when any of you win, you all win.
We all tell ourselves stories in our minds every day. But only a lucky few are telling stories of setting off on quests to discover new gems of understanding & banking them in the family team treasure chest.
Whatever stories your family may choose to tell, begin where you are & make them your own. Building a strong family team doesn’t require expensive trips or elaborate plans. No matter your family makeup, no matter your resources, you can bring your family together as a collaborative force in your corner of the world.
Here’s a few things to keep in mind as you explore teaming up with your family:
AUTONOMY IS FREEDOM | The best teams encourage each member to be their whole selves. Some of this is acceptance, but a lot of it is boundaries & clarification of needs. Try to listen to learn, not control, and share in the creativity of “yes, and…” (and sometimes, “no, but…”). Your family will know you’re on the right path when you notice feelings of levity & letting go. Keep in mind, autonomy is not always getting your way. Autonomy is choosing for yourself from the available options.
CHANGE IS POSSIBLE | Trying new things, listening for clarity, explorative play — they often take a little extra patience & a “one step at a time” mindset. Choosing flexible windows of time and activities that you can easily pick up & set down, will help lead to more small wins & a grounded, sustainable family team practice. Keep in mind, we all change a little every day. When we make time to explore how & why & what might work better, we naturally grow together & individually.
CONNECTION IS KEY | Family bonds are strengthened by the “little things” you’ll learn about each other and experience together on your family adventures. Exploring different topics, trying out different roles and treating each other as equally valid & impactful members of the team will go a long way to deepen connections within & among each of you. Keep in mind, every family is different just like every person is different. Seek to honor the unique things about your family members AND discover all of the little ways each of you might connect.
At its core, building a strong family team is about choosing to connect and grow together — day by day, mission by mission, step by step. It’s about creating a supportive mindset in your home, where everyone belongs and you all feel safe to try new things & be yourselves.
So gather your crew, pick your next adventure and embark on the journey of self-discovery as a family team!
Make Your Family a Team in 15 Minutes
Need a simple next step? Consider one of these quick start ideas:
Give your family team a name (start anywhere and remember you can always change it).
Create a family handshake, team song/playlist and/or dance move.
Come up with one or more signals your family can use as shortcuts in social settings (such as hooking elbows to signal a need to talk 1-1).
Choose a weekly or monthly family meeting time & put it on your calendar.
Choose a super simple family goal to work towards together (like getting to bed 5 mins earlier or planning a shared deep breath of the day moment as you sit down to dinner).
Want a little more direction on fun things to do at home as a family team?
Consider joining the Autonomy Adventurers online this Spring! Members will have access to Quarterly Quests where…
Families will have 3 months to explore missions within each quest (a variety of prompts, guides, modifications, & extensions to make your own).
Quests will be seasonal & they'll involve cohorts of families embarking upon similar missions & sharing their experiences.
Each quest will come with a passport to let families jump right in to some missions in a fun & playful way.
Right now I’m offering my Make Your Family a Team Quest Basics for FREE!
PLUS, you can also download a fun, pocket-sized passport companion to prompt ideas and keep track of your first family team adventure.
Use the link buttons below to sign up for the Autonomy Adventurers Quarterly Quests Pre-Membership waitlist OR to join my email updates list and you’ll get the free code to download them in your confirmation email.
Oh, and one more thing, please keep in mind that this whole thing is at the very beginning & that means 3 really beneficial things for your family team:
More offers are on the way & I want to hear from your family about what you’d like to see & what would be most useful to your team.
Members have direct access to a former teacher to ask questions and make requests, which is something that I won’t be able to promise forever.
This is a passion project for me & I want to design something your family will really use & get value out of, so I’ll always be open to hearing about how it can be improved.
*A huge thank you to the other member of Team M&M for reviewing this blog post & being an all around top notch human to team up with every day. 🫶
Meet the Author
Melody Baran | Iterative Autonomy LLC | Owner. Creator. Curator.
Iterative Autonomy is a practice of self-discovery based on my experience as an educator.
It’s my answer to the question: What can we do to set ALL people up to succeed?
I'm Melody, creator & curator of Iterative Autonomy, and trust me I DO know it's a mouthful, but it's also a way to define both the entire human experience AND how to live life to the fullest in just two words. This is why I feel so strongly about their value and potential to effect positive change.
Without iteration, we are denying the truth of change, the one thing that we can depend on to happen in this world. Without autonomy, we aren't really a world of individuals, we are a finite collection of echo chambers.
I've been a classroom teacher and I've owned & operated two education-based companies. For the last several years, I've had the privilege of stepping away from all of that & researching, from every angle I can think of, how we might approach education differently, so that EVERY child becomes an adult who knows themselves well & knows how to achieve any goal that they choose to pursue.
Iterative Autonomy is my answer.
My practice of autonomy allyship & advocacy is an iterative one as well. I welcome constructive feedback from those who have knowledge, experiences, perspectives and ideas to offer that are different from my own whether they align with my viewpoints or not.
I want to get this right and the only way to do that in my open is to always stay open to better ideas and deeper understanding. In addition to sharing feedback in the comments below, my About page has several forms for sharing ideas with me 1-1 and/or anonymously. Thank you for helping me to grow!