Family Meetings: Key to Great Communication
It is time to fess up. How many times have you thought: “I live with these people, and I can’t believe they don’t know what I’m thinking (or why I’m doing this… or that I don’t like this, etc.)”?
Communication within the family unit – be it parent and child, mother and father, sibling to sibling – is an area that many families struggle with. We assume that we know what our loved ones are thinking or what they want, and they assume our thoughts and desires. It is a giant vicious circle, and it simply doesn’t have to be that way.
You can take the guess work our of your family communications by providing each family member with a means of communicating that is fair and ensures that each family member feels secure in their communication…. The Family Meeting!
Family Meetings are a tool for communication and relationship building/strengthening that have helped countless families settle differences, communicate their concerns, share their joys, and to have a much greater understanding of where one another is coming from!
Family meetings are easy to implement too. Following are some general rules and guidelines from which you can operate:
- Any member of the family can call a family meeting at any time, and if at all possible, every member of the family has to meet when requested. If for some reason every person cannot be there, the meeting should be held that evening and everyone agrees to be there no matter what.
- During the family meeting, whoever calls the family meeting has the floor; during this time no one else can speak, and everyone has to listen – they can take notes on what is being said, but no one can say anything.
- The person who called the family meeting has the floor until they say what they called the meeting to say and are totally complete; they can say anything to anybody for as long as they need to.
- When the person that called the family meeting is complete, each family member then has the opportunity to speak what they see and feel about what was said.
Parents obviously get to say what they think and feel too, but remember, it is not your job to control the meeting or push it in a certain direction. Instead, parents have to learn to be the question so that the person with the issue can get to the resolve with hugs and communication instead of demand – which is especially important when dealing with “tweens” and teens who absolutely hate being told what to do!
Family meetings have helped countless numbers of families to become better people, better communicators, and more tuned into the ones they love. And, all it takes is your time, attention, and commitment to the process and your family. Now what cherished loved one isn’t worth that?!