Back To School – Family Meeting

Calling all Family Members to the Living Room!

Being a part of a family and a household is somewhat like being an employee in a company!  I believe in structure and I believe in holding family meetings.  I have found this to be extremely important to my children and to my own sanity. If everyone knows the rules and the boundaries, then they know what to expect!

The first thing you need to do is to prepare for your meeting.  If you are not a single parent than all caregivers should be involved, so everyone is on the same wave length, again, this way there are no surprises and everyone knows what to expect.  Decide what to cover in the meeting. Write it all down, and give each member of the family a meeting agenda, you could also use a bulletin board to display key topics.

Because of the upcoming transition of going back to school, here are some ideas on what to cover:

1.  The new schedule for school- Discuss who is going where, when they are going, and how they are getting there.  Talk about what the morning and nightly routines will be in your home (I will discuss more on routines on an upcoming blog post – check back later).

2. Look at the calendar – Discuss how sports practices and other activities are going to effect the schedule, make sure everyone is aware of the changes.  In an earlier post, I talked about the family calendar, bring this out as a visual and show your family how it works.

3.  Make the expectations clear- Every house has different rules depending on your values and beliefs, this is a great time to review those rules with clear expectations, and clear consequences.  Some families change up the rules for TV and video games due to school, make sure you talk about these issues.

4.  Chore Responsibilities- This is a great time to review chores with your children or to establish new ones if necessary.  Use charts as a visual for kids, especially younger ones, they love being able to put a sticker on their chart after completion.

The Family Meeting is a great way for the family to come together and be a part of how the household is ran.  If everyone is clear on what is coming up, everyone will feel more in control of their time, and there are no surprises.  Make the meeting a habit, it’s not meant to do only once, like with any organizing system you put in place, you need to review and tweak as things change.  Make it fun and light, and make it short. Kids do not have a long attention span, I learned the hard way, to make the meeting short and sweet! Allow for questions and discussion, this is a great way to see your kids point of view and be able to problem solve as a family unit.

Discussing these issues leads to living a more organized lifestyle, which is something your children will carry with them for the rest of their lives!

Happy Organizing!  (Next blog post – How to Organize your BackPack!)