Why You Should Have Family Meetings
Every family should have family meetings, no matter how small a family you have. If there is just one parent and one child, that counts as a family and you can have a family meeting.
The whole idea behind having a particular time to get together is all about letting kids know that they will be heard. Often, when my kids are annoyed about something I say to them “save it for the family meeting”. This way we can make sure that only the really important things hang around until family meeting day.
It teaches kids patience and self control. They learn that some things need to wait for a certain day. Obviously not everything can wait. But if there are ongoing issues, these are the kinds of things that should wait until family meeting day.
There are always two sides to every story, and at family meeting everyone should have a chance to speak their mind. You can use a stick that you have decorated for the purpose of family meetings. Younger children especially will love to take part in decorating a special stick. Older kids might just hand around a spoon or a pen. The issue is an object will help bring some order to the family meeting and this is vitally important.
Everyone should have a turn to speak but it must be done in an orderly fashion. Everyone is entitled to their personal opinion. After everyone has spoken, it should be time to strategise about HOW to solve ongoing issues.
Everyone should have some input about who to change things. Then the children should agree together about what to do to solve problems. Here’s the thing: when the children take part in the solution planning, they are much more likely to abide by it, because they own it as their own. This is important. Miss this and children are less likely to abide by decisions made.
The end result, you have some agreed upon decisions and values to abide by, at least until the next family meeting. Then when a child oversteps a boundary, you can simply remind them of the decisions you jointly made in your meeting. If you all agreed upon those decisions, that should be reason enough for the child to come into line.
Parenting will be so much easier when your children understand the reasons behind the boundaries. Have a family meeting today and change your household for the better.
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