Family meetings

Regular family meetings can be a great way to improve communication within a family.  Make it fun; serve popcorn, ice cream sundaes, or some other fun food to go along with the meeting.  Consider having each of you take a turn talking while the other members of the family listen.  The only rule is that everyone has to listen to each other respectfully (no eye rolling!) and without interrupting.  You can set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and each person gets to talk about whatever is on their mind. The Time Timer works great for this purpose because it is a visual reminder of the amount of time that has passed and how much is left (www.timetimer.com).  After you go around the family once, everyone could decide they each want another turn.  If at the end parents need to provide some education and information about a topic that came up, this is a good time to do so. If conflicts arise then different perspectives can be shared. Perhaps some problem solving strategies can also be discussed for problems that arise in these discussions.

At the end of the meeting everyone can talk about the upcoming week. Each person can write or draw on a calendar about important events that are happening that week.  Each family member could choose a color that is theirs to write with.

Keep the calendar can be kept in a public place in the house, like the kitchen, for everyone to see.

Eating together as often as possible is also a good idea.  In this rushed society of ours, we can forget the importance of eating together.  Family dinner can be a great time for sharing peoples thoughts and feelings.  There would be no harm in going around the dinner table and letting everybody talk about their day for a few minutes, taking turns talking and listening to each other.