Saturday
Nov212009
« Family Meetings »
Frieda Babbley | Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 7:03PM
Family meetings, hmmm. Yes, something to think about. If you have them, here’s some tips on how to make them better. If you haven’t, find out why you should, and pronto. Family meetings makes communicating with your children easy when memos aren’t enough.
More and more people are having larger and larger families. It’s not uncommon to see families with four or more children. I, personally, have four. Each about two years apart. Without family meetings, life would not be quite as organized and certainly wouldn’t run quite as smoothly. In fact I can tell you from experience that the months where I set family meetings by the wayside were the most chaotic months of our family lives.
By family meetings I don’t mean dinner time, game time, or any other family get together time. Family meetings MUST be at a time of their own and separate from any other family activity. Once you know what you’re doing, you’ll be wearing the heels in the family with great pride and satisfaction.
There is pride in a house that runs smoothly, or at least with little in the way of snafoos. It is possible. It can be done.
Some simple rules to follow.
Your home is a business. Business meetings are an integral and essential part of a business’s success. A successful business meeting will do what no memos can accomplish. They are face to face. They allow for face to face communication and they allow the head of the meeting to “see” that all are informed and all are on the same page. It also allows the meeting members to understand their own positions and duties, and to be on the same page with eachother so that business can move forward.
Like any business meeting, a family meeting must have a purpose. To many orders of business or unorganized topics make room for disaster and confusion.
Take this example: My mother is coming into town on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. I gave myself two weeks to prepare for her visit. Enough time to organize, dust, vacuum, launder, wash down walls, sanitize, and all that good stuff, right? Right. That is if you have a plan and stick to it and if everyone is on board with the you. No sabotaging please!
I spoke to each person individually about this and what my goal was. “Grandmother’s coming to town and I want this place in tip top shape. I want her to see how beautiful our house is and how much we care about it.” (Tug at the emotional pride strings there.) “Get everything cleaned up… Organize your stuff… Throw away anything that can be considered trash… Hang you’re clothes up..”
Basically I was doing what is fine to do on a daily basis. I gave each “individual memos”. But this was not general day to day business I was asking to be conducted. This was a project, a large one at that. This was not going to cut it. Over a week in and we were in worse shape than when we started.
Why? Because I memoed and conference called when I ought to have held a meeting. Because I was giving the big picture without drawing a map. Because I didn’t give my children the appropriate tools and guidance. Because I didn’t make sure we were all on the same page envisioning the same goal.
It’s never too late to turn a desperate situation into something achievable and successful. I am not one to give up. Normally. With only four days and counting I realized I was going to have to act fast.
I took a few moments to think about things.
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What did I expect?
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What was the ultimate goal?
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What were the little goals?
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Who would do what?
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How would each task get done?
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What order?
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What time-frame?
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What was realistic?
Then I thought of the details.
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Who would do what?
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When would they do it?
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Who would help them?
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Who would be in charge?
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How would completed projects be protected and areas maintained so that our efforts would not be for nothing?
My oldest must have known that look of mine, that I was in the mental planning stage. I must have taught him well because he came to me with a chart. “Here mom,” he said. I charted some ideas that I thought would be helpful. I looked. I liked. It was just what I needed to complete my thoughts. He had drawn a map of the house, labeled and numbered each room. Under the map he wrote everyone’s names and placed numbers after the names. The numbers corresponded to the rooms that people would be in charge of. Some shared, some not. Best of all, and I have to admit this came as a bit of a surprise, all fair.
Okay. This would work.
Now in his mind, people would simply be in charge of these rooms from the get-go. But I being the oldest and wisest and the one responsible for “advanced organization and order” as he put it (I was not designated to any particular room), I had thoughts of my own.
One thing to remember with any task is that you have to have room for improvisation and a change in course of action. Employees and children don’t always take this well. It gets confusing and in their minds this gives THEM room for improvisation and change in course of action. No, no, no, no, no. As much as I love to be straightforward and outright, I must say I have learned the value of keeping secrets, say as little as you have to, make sure some of your words are floaty and indirect or unspecific, and above all give yourself room for chance.
When calling for a family meeting, it’s important that you have it while your juices are still flowing. When you’re done thinking about it, talk about it. Don’t let time go by.
There are some other simple rules to remember when holding a family meeting.
- Stand. This makes you the main focus and since you’re taller, adds to your importance and authority.
- Use a confident voice. If you need to pretend you’re a teacher or the head of a company, by all means do so. You’ll find that getting to the point and cutting through the crap becomes much easier to do, and that what you have to say will be focussed on by your “audience” more readily.
- Divide up your “speech”. Make your points, speak your ideas, divide your thoughts, into sections. It’s easier to memorize your multiplication tables one main number at a time. If you don’t have a variety of related subject matters, but you do have a variety of kids, then the division comes in addressing the children individually and stating their roll in the matter at hand. This may seem unnecessary and repetitive, but this is a good thing, because you wouldn’t need a family meeting if it were something that could just be put in a memo.
- Key points, fluid, back to key points. If you expect your children to retain the information you’ve given them, you need to make sure you follow this rule. State the key points you are making, expand on those key points, and then state the key points again. Not for everything you have to say, but for each section of what you have to say.
- Question time. This is not a time for your children to ask questions about what you’ve talked about (that can come at the end if it’s that kind of meeting). This IS the time to make sure that you have been heard and understood. Questions like “so what will you do… what will you be in charge of… how long do you have… who will be working with you… if you’re not sure, what do you do?” are appropriate here. Ask your kids questions that will elicit them to repeat what you’ve gone over - they can answer this in a flash if you’ve done your job of being succinct.
- Finale. If you’ve divided up your information well enough, your kids will be able to answer any questions you pose to them about any part of your meeting before the meeting closes. If they can do this, you’ve done your job and it’s time to move on to action.
And now your job is done. Time to reap the benefits.
So far so good since our family meeting earlier today. I’m thinking as long as I, myself, keep up the momento and ask the same questions I asked at the meeting if they go astray (or before for the younger ones), I’ll be enjoying a slice of cake and reading a book before my mother even gets on the plane for her Thanksgiving visit.
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