Tips for Conducting a Successful Family Meeting

Meeting regularly is a great way to keep family life running smoothly and make everyone feel heard and connected

Regular family meetings can create an environment where everyone feels loved and cared for. (5 second Studio/Shuterstock)

Creating a healthy home environment where your family feels connected and well cared for takes time, effort, and commitment. Family life can be busy, though, and sometimes it’s difficult to keep up with everyone and everything going on. So how do you keep day-to-day life running smoothly?

Well, one solution is to conduct regular family meetings. Every family’s meeting will be unique to them, but here are some things we’ve tried over the years to help us reap the most rewards from this time together.

Encourage Participation

Introduce the idea to your kids a few days before you’d like to hold the first meeting, and encourage participation. What’s the key to getting your kids to participate? Make it sound fun! Make up some simple DIY invitations and hand them out. Get excited, and your kids will, too.

Emphasize that you want to know what they think. Explain that everyone gets a chance to speak; this is the time to share their thoughts and ideas, ask for help with problems, talk about relationships, ask questions, and express any concerns.

You can also spark interest with this simple idea: Each speaker gets to hold a talking stick—also known as Super Speakerman, a wooden spoon equipped with the superhero power to ward off all interruptions. A felt cape and Sharpie face are optional.

If your kids are still reluctant or uninterested in participating, sweeten the deal by providing irresistible meeting snacks and promising them a fun family activity or game post-meeting.

Set Guidelines

It’s important to establish a few simple guidelines prior to holding your first family meeting.

Above all else, require that everyone behave respectfully toward one another. Simply put, this means listening patiently while others speak, no interrupting, volunteering positive comments or advice only, and refraining from any disrespectful facial or body language such as rolling the eyes, sighing in exasperation, fidgeting loudly, or clowning around.

Insist on no cellphones, tablets, or earbuds.

Set a time limit—especially for the first several meetings—of 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the ages of your children.

Write all the guidelines on a whiteboard and go over them one by one, making sure that everyone understands what’s expected of them.

Meet Weekly

Meeting weekly, if possible, is ideal. I know this may sound easier said than done, but regular weekly meetings really can help you to keep on top of things. Most importantly, you can reinforce family values and rules to help keep your kids on track.

Weekly meetings will help you to regularly assess family and sibling relationships. It enables you to be proactive in intervening in any conflicts, and to continue molding and shaping your children’s socio-emotional development.

It also allows you to go over the schedule for the next week, discussing any changes or challenges, making note of any special events, and delegating tasks, and to basically assess the current tone of your family.

If all seems well, there’s really no need to stick to the full time limit. Go ahead and adjourn your meeting early. Do something fun together.

Be Realistic

Be realistic about your expectations, especially at first. Consider your first family meeting to be a trial run of sorts. Proceed slowly. Expect a few wiggles here and there, maybe a giggle or two, or a whispered invitation for Kitty (yes, our cat was named Kitty) to join in. Kids may initially forget the guidelines, but gentle reminders work wonders.

If you have babies or toddlers in the house, naptime or their earlier bedtimes might be optimal for conducting your meeting. If not, perhaps an older sibling might want to help out with the little ones should the need arise. You can also position the baby swing or bouncy seat nearby and equip any toddlers in your house with quiet, hands-on activities, setting them up nearby so they feel included.

Of course, some meetings will roll smoothly along and others may be a bit bumpy. That’s OK. In fact, the goings-on of your meetings, whether positive or negative, offer great insight and can actually aid you in planning your future meetings.

Adjourn the Meeting on a Positive Note

Always try to close your family meetings on a positive note. For example, you can go around the room and offer a personalized thank-you to each family member or bless each person with a compliment.

If you didn’t provide snacks during the meeting, this is the perfect time to share some sweet treats.

Celebrate the fact that you’re actively working to strengthen your family, and pass around a basket of party favor horns or kazoos to whoop it up—unless the young ones are sleeping, of course, in which case, take the celebration outside.