It’s a Weekly Thing
When sharing with other parents, I often mention that our family has a weekly family meeting. They often ask me what we do and how it works. So here is what we do and how it works.
It’s regularly scheduled on Sunday evenings. We all sit in a circle on the floor and light a candle. That was my son’s idea as he really likes candlelight. Then we take a moment to breathe and focus. If we’re all up for it, we might do an Om or some other chant.
Next we go around the circle and tell each other what we appreciate about them for the week. We try to come up with something better than thanks for cooking and doing the laundry, but in a pinch those will do.
After appreciation, we go through the week’s schedule.
Talk About Family Issues
After the schedule, we check in about any issues that have been coming up for us and how we might work to resolve them.
We have been doing this since my son was about 3. We all take turns facilitating as we like. Nothing formalized. The concepts comes from a great book that goes with a class called Redirecting Children’s Behavior.
[tweetthis]The idea is to create a structure to talk as a family so that when they get older and issues to arise, you’ve already got a structure in place.[/tweetthis]
Discuss Money Matters
Once a month, we review family finances. Given that I am keeper of the money knowledge, I felt it necessary to share this info with the family. I am hoping this will teach my son a bit about money and budgets. We go over the income and expenses and see how we did on our cash flow. Our family talks about where money comes from and what we spend it on.
We end the meeting with a Namaste and bow to each other. And, I have to add, the ending was chosen by my son at the age of 3 when we were formulating our structure.
After the meeting, we often do something fun like a special dessert or a family game of Go Fish.
We even include extended family members when they visit or we’re on vacation together. There’s nothing like appreciation to bring people closer and lift their spirits.
Also, if one parent is out of town, we still hold the meeting.
If you want to try this in your home, I suggest having a meeting to create the structure as a family. I’ve heard of some families starting or ending with a favorite song.
I hope you enjoy family meetings as much as we do.
