How To Have Family Meetings That Move!
The Family Meeting is a deep and rich strategy that will help you stay on your parenting road map to success. The purpose of the weekly family meeting is to show appreciation; teach cooperation; distribute household contributions; express concerns, identify problems and teach problem solving; and distribute allowance.
Each week, the family meeting is made up of four components that are covered in 20 minutes or less:
Appreciations
Appreciations are an opportunity for us to acknowledge and appreciate and express our gratitude for the people that we live with everyday for the ways that they contribute to our lives in positive ways.
Each meeting begins with appreciations which will:
set the tone for the meeting
teach people how to give and receive appreciations
show family members how their individual character traits and contributions positively impact the family
Allow our children to practice looking for the best in others.
Contributions
Kids are going to have to learn how to manage their own households eventually, so we might as well invite them from the earliest ages to contribute to ours, and take the time for training. This way, when they are 13, we’re not screaming at the top of our lungs about, “Go do your own laundry!” and nobody has ever shown them where the washing machine is. The contributions portion of the Family Meeting is a place for us to start to make agreements about daily chores, so that children and parents can stop fighting all the time and parents are not nagging, and reminding.
The best way for your children to get into the habit of contributions and how to manage time is to have one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The key is regularity and that it is done on a daily basis.
Go in steps when teaching new skills. Be encouraging and supportive, and look for improvement and progress – not perfection.
Problem Solving
Parents often find themselves in the role of judge and juror. The kids are coming to them throughout the day saying things like, “Mom, so and so did this to me!” “Well, what did you say to them?” “Ok, well you guys are going to have to…” Five minutes later, she’s put out that little fire and some other child is going, “Mom, I don’t like it when…” “Ok, well how should we solve that?” And after all day solving problems, the next day all of those same problems show up again because no one can remember what the solutions were, nobody really agreed to follow-through on the solutions, so we find ourselves in this catch-22. This is the chance for your family to become confident and competent problem solvers.
I suggest that parents put a big piece of paper up on a wall and at the top of the paper they say, “I have a problem when….” And the bottom of that piece of paper, it says, “No name, no blame.”
Tip – Make sure that the children learn to write down their problem in one sentence with no name attached. This will help to filter out the emotion and drama from their problem by eliminating the “details.”
Tip – If you have small children that can’t yet write, give them a stack of magazines and a pair of scissors and have them cut out a picture of their problem. If you agree to write down their problem for them – you will always be in charge of writing their problems.
Solve 1 problem per meeting
If it is a problem for one person, it is a problem for the family
Everyone contributes a solution, no one comments on the solution
Encourage your children to come up with the best solutions; parents can provide solutions but they MUST BE BAD! As parents, we are pretty good at coming up with solutions so we don’t need any practice
The individual with the problem chooses the solution they would like to try for 1 week
Vote by consensus
