Family Meetings

Family Meetings

What are family meetings? Are they important? What do you do in a family meeting? What is the purpose of a family meeting?

A family meeting is a time for all family members to get together, to share their lives, and re-connect with each other. Spending time together helps family members feel important, loved, recognized, and valued by the rest of the family.

What do you do in a family meeting?

Establish a regular time and place when the entire family is together, such as after a family meal; encourage discussion by everyone. Do not criticize and critique; practice assertiveness and active listening. Praise, or thank, each person for sharing. Their contributions are just as important as yours.

The Prepare-Enrich workbook provides several suggestions for discussion in your family meeting. Choose several to implement in your family meetings.

1. Sharing a Family Strength—one thing each person likes about the family.

2. Sharing a Family Growth Area—one thing each person would like to see changed.

3. Choose one issue to work on that week.

4. Brainstorm possible ideas to resolve the issue.

5. Discuss ideas and select one idea to try out.

6. Plan to discuss progress at the meeting next week.

7. What do you feel was the best thing that happened to you or your family this week/or recently?

8. What was the worst thing that happened to you or your family this week?

9. For an issue discussed in the previous question, what could have been done differently?

10. Have each person share what they see as a strength for your family.

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