Family Meetings

Regularly scheduled family meetings can be a great way for families to touch base, make plans, resolve conflicts and to help build cooperation in your family. With everyone's busy schedules, whether it be work, sports, church or community functions, it is hard for many families to see each other all at once, and sitting down to eat dinner together and discuss the day is a thing of the past for many households.

The first step toward planning a family meeting is to make a chart of everyone's activities. Fill in your children's and your own schedule for the week. This will help you find or make time when all family members are free. Regular meetings will give everyone a chance to discuss good feelings, let families have more fun together, help families work as a team, teach family members about respect and problem solving, help parents learn effective discipline and give children a place they know they will be heard and loved.

A suggestion for a regular time might be once a week. Plan to have the meeting last from twenty to thirty minutes. Younger children may need shorter or more frequent meetings. Make a list of topics, or an agenda for the meeting. Post it (ie; on the refrigerator) so family members can add to it. You will then need to decide which topics will be discussed at the first meetings. Remember to leave time to make decisions. Take turns with different tasks during the meeting. One person can be leader and help stick to the agenda. Someone else can take notes. If a child is too young to write, they can retrieve the agenda or minutes from the last meeting. Everyone should get a chance to lead, even if they are young and need help. Another person can take notes, or minutes of the present meeting. When talking about something on the list, let your children speak first, so they can feel responsible.

Try not to let the meetings become complaining, or gripe sessions .Some things to be covered in family meetings include: kids' activities, allowances, errands, chores, rules when friends visit, weekend plans, rules for using the phone, computer, video games, etc., and homework.

Family meetings are for all families, one or two parent, one or many children, and stepfamilies as well.

A typical format for a formal approach to a family meeting is as follows:
-share good things that have happened for each family member
-read and discuss the notes from the previous meeting
-talk about things that were not discussed at the last meeting
-talk about new ideas your family want to discuss at this meeting
-plan a family activity
-summarize what all have agreed to. Ask members what they feel about the decisions reached.

Remember, don't expect the perfect family meeting. You are just beginning. The most important thing is for everyone to feel their ideas are important.

Thank you for reading,
Carol Bottstein