Are Family Members Scuttling Your Schedule?
Nothing is more frustrating than planning out your week only to have it discombobulated by surprise schedule requests from your kids or late night work meetings by your spouse? Poof, there go your plans!
The Solution: Weekly Family Meetings!
This entails every family member bringing their schedule to the table and coordinating their needs with the rest of the family.
I was introduced to family meetings about five years ago while part of a parenting support group led by parenting coach Julie Ross in NYC. It has brought a lot of sanity to our lives and is slowly teaching our kids how to plan their weeks out in advance too. (Although they won’t admit it! 🤣)
It is a way to connect with our kids, listen to their needs and spend quality time with them. But I’ve also found it to be an invaluable time management tool as well, especially over the last 6 months of COVID.
Over the years our family meetings have taken various forms but their format generally centers around the following fundamental pillars:
Regular Timeframe: Pick a regular day and time of the week that works for your family and stick to it. Example: Sundays at 7 pm.
Compliments: Begin the meeting with a round of compliments. Everyone finds something to compliment everyone else on.
Example: Hudson I admired the way you overcame your fear of heights and pushed through that last section of the climb. That took courage.
Sometimes you can switch it up and talk about something you are grateful for but compliments do wonders for family dynamics.
Issues: Everyone goes around and raises an issue that they’d like to address in the family.
Example: I’m spending 5 hours a week on laundry. I need some help. How can we divide the work amongst us moving forward?When the kids were younger (elementary school) we focused less on issues and more on compliments and fun aspects of family meetings so it was something they looked forward to.
You have to be careful that the meetings don’t turn into everyone ganging up on 1-2 family members, especially early on in the development of the family meetings. Pick only 1-2 issues to address a week if they are heavy topics.
We had a notebook that family members could write issues in throughout the week and we’d address them during family meetings so we wouldn’t forget them or if we wanted them to be anonymous. We'd also record our decisions in the notebook so there was no disagreement on what was decided upon in each meeting.
We often use this time to decide on family vacations, volunteer opportunities, annual charitable donations, birthday parties, big ticket family purchases, etc.
Calendar: We have an easel where we review key dates for the week and highlight important appointments that require coordination efforts amongst family members. Anything important is noted on the shared family iCalendar as well.
Noting abnormalities in our weekly schedules has proved very important. Our kids do not like surprises. For example, our kids need to be continuously reminded when we are going out of town or else all hell breaks loose come Friday afternoon when we are about to leave and they somehow forgot. Our weekly meetings have averted those meltdowns.
During COVID we often leave the easel up throughout the week with important notes regarding their abnormal school schedules and inspirational quotes to keep us going throughout the week.Allowance: Give out the weekly allowance if you have one and discuss any financial matters relevant to your kids' age group.
Fun Family Activity: End the meeting with a fun family activity. Mix it up. It can be a game, movie, ice-cream or a fun outing.
You want it to be something the kids look forward to, especially when the kids are younger. You want this activity to draw the kids to family meetings, so by the time they are teenagers they have a very positive association with family meetings.
This means going light on the issues when they are younger and heavy on the fun. This will pay off for you down the road when the issues get real. We made this mistake early despite my coach’s warning and had to backtrack. It was painful. 😉
Experiment with what works for your family. Sometimes we drop things from the framework due to lack of time, but the one constant that always remains is the calendar! It's been too valuable for us.
Give it a try and time for it to sink in for your family. Let me know how it goes.
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P.S. I'm opening up a few new 1:1 coaching spots in my Master Working from Home Signature program this fall for high achieving moms who are stressed out and want to take back their time, achieve their lost goals and rediscover themselves. There is never a better a time to create the life you desire. Click on the Discovery Call button below to set up a free call to learn more.
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