Experts suggest that having Family Meetings for just 20 to 30 minutes each week can help families stay connected, work as a team, and have a family calendar under control. Moreover, it is one of the best ways to teach children vital life skills and reinforce family values.
In short, that’s something each awesome family should do.
And we are an awesome family.
So following my resolution to implement Agile tools at home, I’ve committed to a new family tradition – Sunday Family Meetings.
After reading Bruce Feiler’s The Secrets of Happy Families, I had this image in my mind of my three children sitting still around the table, all engaged in conversation and paying rapt attention to me and my husband, Dawid, teaching them family values. We all laugh and play a fun game at the end of the family meeting while enjoying our freshly baked brownies.
Of course, it’s not how it always goes.
Most of the time, it feels a bit crazy. One child keeps leaving the room. The other is playing with his Lego blocks. The youngest is there for the dancing.
But even with this chaos, something wonderful happens:
- Everyone gets a chance to savour the great moments of the week and celebrate the wins.
- Problems and challenges get addressed without judgement – everyone is committed to problem-solving and continuous improvement.
- We all feel more organised – our family calendar is under control, with all the events and activities planned and responsibilities allocated.
- Our boys have input on decisions that impact them – meals, activities, holidays – they feel engaged and in control.
- Our family values are highlighted and reiterated so the boys see how words in our Family Manifesto transform into actions.
Family Meetings – Agile Tool for Happy and Highly Effective Families
Our Agile adventure started with Bruce Feiler’s great book The Secrets of Happy Families, where he shared a simple framework for family meetings built around shared decision-making, open communication and constant adaptability. He writes:
“When my wife, Linda, and I adopted this blueprint into our home, weekly family meetings quickly became the single most impactful idea we introduced into our lives since the birth of our children.”
I later came across Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families. Family Meetings, or Weekly Family Time, was the idea at the core of Habit 3: Put First Things First.
Then I asked Google (obviously!). And guess what? A surprising amount of research proves the benefits of regular family meetings – improved relationships, better performance and a higher level of well-being for the entire family. So holding weekly family meetings is the number one strategy family therapists and coaches recommend to parents to address challenging behaviour in children.
It is such a simple idea. But it sounds like one of the best parenting hacks ever!
How To Get Started
Apparently, getting started is the hardest part.
“There is no way I can do all this with my 3 little kids”, I thought.
But I believe in imperfect starts.
One evening I started by thinking about my top 3 goals for our Family Meetings.
What do I want to achieve?
That’s what I wrote in my journal:
- I want to get better at planning and family organisation in general. Meals. Activities. Chores. All been chaotic, and I definitely need to push it towards some kind of balance.
- I want to create an autotelic family context and help kids develop vital executive skills – planning, organisation, goal-setting, flexibility – all that stuff that leads to a happy and fulfilled life.
- And last but not least, I want us to have fun together and strengthen our bond and connection.
Once I had goals in from of me, I could outline a simple action plan:
- Create a Family Weekly Calendar and Agenda
- Block 30 minutes every Sunday
- Have regular family meetings ☺
So firstly, I’ve pulled together a weekly family calendar printout to have all the activities and tasks in one place. To keep it simple, I went for the swim lanes for each family member and added two rows: one for important reminders and one for meal planning.
With the Family Meeting Agenda, I decided to start simple and then, with time, make it more like Starr’s family set-up, with chores, finances and Cotchas.
So our Family Meeting Agenda MVP looked like this:
1. Weekly retrospective:
- what things went well in our family this week?
- what things could we improve in our family?
- what things will you commit to working on this week?
2. Weekly calendar – activities, tasks, whereabouts and family plans
3. Meal requests
4. Wrap up – fun time!
On the same day, I announced to the whole family that from now on, we’ll be having family meetings every Sunday.
And that’s what we did!
Six Tips On Making The Most Out of Your Family Meetings
Getting started is hard. Being consistent is even harder. The main point is to experiment and find what works for YOUR family.
Here are my six tips on how to get the most out of Family Meetings:
1. Make a commitment.
It will not always be easy. Nor will it be convenient. But if you commit to having one weekly family meeting, even a very brief one, you are more likely to succeed and reap the rewards later (that’s the compound effect!).
Like with every new habit, start small, but be consistent.
2. Block 30 minutes in a calendar every week.
Put it on your calendar. Literally. Like you would schedule a call with your boss. You can always change and reschedule, but having this visual reminder gives you a mental kick to “just do it”.
We first tried afternoon sessions but soon realised that boys were tired after the whole day, wanted to play, or just had better things to do. Now we switched to having “business breakfasts” with kids every Sunday.
And be flexible! For example, our last meeting was in the car on the way to our family adventure.
3. Reflect on the past week and set goals for the next one (“review and retrospective” ):
As Bruce Feiler suggests in his book, discuss three main questions as a family:
- what things went well in our family this week?
- what things could we improve in our family?
- what things will you commit to working on this week?
You can use your Family Manifesto (Family Mission Statement) as a guideline.
For example: “I was proud of you that despite of horrible weather and hard day at school you didn’t give up and went for your swimming practice,” or “This week we all went to bed late and it was hard to wake up in the morning. Let’s work on our sleeping habits next week.”
You get the point.
Also, don’t get frustrated if you can’t get any words out of your children’s mouths. What we found, if we, parents, go first and share our ideas, kids are more likely to pick up the momentum and add some points to the discussion. When we put them on the spot with a question and let them go first, their most common answer is “I don’t know.”
4. Have agenda and a weekly calendar in front of you.
Calendars are great for planning and setting goals. You can go for a digital version, a printout or both – whatever works for your family.
Keep it simple: activities, reminders, tasks, meals. Use colour codes for every family member, or swim lanes, like on a Kanban board.
Our boys don’t have any gadgets yet, so we use a printout.
At the end of the meeting, put the artefacts – calendar, action log, weekly schedule – in the visible place.
We keep ours on our kitchen pinboard next to our Family Manifesto and Morning Checklists. Every morning during breakfast, we briefly recap our plans, tasks and whereabouts. Agile indeed.
5. Wrap up the meeting with some fun.
Have a surprise at the end of the meeting to keep everyone’s attention and motivation – a treat, a game, or an adventure for the whole family. Last time, we all really enjoyed playing the “Would you rather” game!
6. Stay flexible and use positive reinforcement.
Some meetings would be chaotic. If you have younger kids, they’ll eventually get bored and engage in something that is more fun for them at that moment. Remember, a child’s attention span is about two to three times of his age. That means you can expect your three-year-old to engage at best for 9 minutes. Crack a joke, but don’t yell or criticise. Be flexible with the agenda and time.
Also, remember that positive reinforcement is one of the most powerful tools for changing human behaviour. Praise the children for participating in the family meeting and thank them for their contribution.
The Bottom Line
Holding regular family meetings seems to be a very simple parenting tool. So simple, that we might nod our heads and then completely forget about it.
But it is life-changing.
It helps each of us to focus on what really matters in life – our family, our goals and our values – and embrace the concept of continuous improvement.
Invest 20 minutes in your family each week. And it will be one of the highest-return investments you will ever make.
Loads of love,
Irina
