Family Meetings - Chicago,IL

We have nightly family meetings...we also call it "dinner". This is where everyone talks about their day and we discuss upcoming plans for the next day or the weekend.

'Family meeting' sounds like some sort of intervention to me.
Like it's something to be done in the event of an emergency/crisis/damage control.

Keeping open communications is important.
I would think talking together at meal times should be good enough for most situations.

We don't have formal family meetings. So, no Robert's Rules of Order or anything like that. If there's a need to discuss something positive, we tend to do so over dinner. If there's a need to discuss something negative, we wait until after dinner so nobody feels upset over the meal.

When we do discuss problematic situations, we try to do so thoughtfully and kindly. There's already no name-calling, yelling, or rude talk in our home, so that's not a problem...but we also try not to make anyone feel personally attacked. We try to focus on problem solving rather than person fixing. Sometimes it's helpful to have everyone present, and sometimes it's not necessary. We play it based upon the purpose and need of the meeting.

We do as necessary, but we also discuss things over dinner often as well. It depends on the topic. We don't do them weekly. I overall find face to face discussions to be more beneficial than emails and if there's bad news, better they hear it from us.

My former boss tells me he does them in his home. His kids are probably 10 & 8. The kids dread the meetings. Can't offer any more information.

Best,
F. B.

We have two official family meetings a week. One is a chance for everyone to share announcements with the family. The younger kids use it as a chance to share silly things with everyone (It is a running joke that our fourth child's only announcement for a year straight was, "Buttons.") The older kids and my husband and I use it as a chance to share calendar items with the rest of the family. Occasionally, we also use this time to discuss issues that affect everyone, like video game/media rules, chore assignments, etc.. The other meeting is called family home evening. We do it on Monday nights, and it is a mix of formal and fun. We sing songs, have a short lesson to emphasize values we're trying to teach our children, then play games and have treats. Just to be clear, this is not the only time we do things together, but it is specifically set aside each week to spend time together learning, sharing, and having fun together.

We find that these activities help us keep each other in the loop as well as emphasizing the importance of setting aside time specifically for our family to bond. With the amount of traveling my husband does and just the general busy nature of life, they take on even greater importance for us. We tried to incorporate these things into dinnertime at first since everyone was already sitting together, but our current method works much better for us.

We just talk at dinnertime. We don't get to eat together every night due to my husband's work schedule, but most nights we do sit down and eat and discuss things that need discussion then.

Family meetings are usually dinner here.
There's nothing wrong with having a standing family meeting/catch up/update appointment every week.
Here, like I said, we tend to bail things down at dinner or we will (3 of us) briefly put heads together, as needed, as situations change or arise.
I'm sure you'll be ridiculed for this idea, as I was when I asked about Family Vision and Mossion Statements:
http://www.mamapedia.com/questions/15609940349416570881

Although I'm still convinced that having O. is a good and positive thing!

J., could you let us know what goals you're hoping family meetings might achieve for your particular family? That might help folks answer. As the answers below show, some posters see formal "meetings" as only on .an ad hoc basis, focusing on something that's more serious that can't be handled in everyday interactions. If you're thinking of using meetings for something more basic, such as setting weekly chores or checking in with the kids re: their schedules or homework for that week, etc., that would be quite different from how folks who have posted are using them. Aren't your kids pretty young? Not sure if schedules and homework are on your radar yet--? (But now I'm thinking, maybe weekly family meetings to check on chores/homework/activity schedules, and get everything on a calendar, would be good for larger families!)

There are only the three of us (young teen daughter, husband and me) so we don't do any designated meetings, unless you'd count the very rare cases where we needed to tell our daughter something serious and wanted to be sure we were all together, at a place and time without distractions. But that has only happened when we've had deaths in the family and when we told her about relatives getting a divorce. .

We don't have formal family meetings where an agenda is produced. We don't do power point slide presentations either.

We are fairly open in our communications. If something needs to be said, we say it. The communication is two-way. Our kids are older, so maybe that's why we're a little more lax.

We don't do them. We eat dinner together most nights so we all talk then or maybe if we're driving somewhere something will come up. We also often eat weekend breakfasts together. I haven't seen the need for a formal meeting or anything scheduled.

right now my kids are to young to attend meetings... but we sit down and eat dinner together every night and me and dh discuss things then so the kids know whats going on and are involved as much as they can be
i hope to keep this up till my kids graduate highschool and move out. (my parents did the mealtime meetings and it was helpful to know who was doing what and what was going on. )

On a regular schedule? No.
When a specific issue pops up that we all need to weigh in on, we sit down and discuss it.
We don't discuss troublesome issues over meals - spoils the appetite and detracts from the joy of the meal.

When we need to refocus on things I am usually feeling very stresses and much like a servant in my own home. So when I call one it's usually at the top of my voice over some infraction or other.

I go over basic respecting of others and how we all have to give 100% for our house to be a happier place to live.

We learned having a meeting in couple's therapy. Making an appointment to sit down with your spouse and making time to get alone to visit on that one subject that's really bothering me...well, we can usually come to an agreement then have a meeting with the rest of the household.

For instance, hubby calls me aside and asks me if we can get together that evening at 6pm for a few minutes to chat. I say yes.

We go in the dining room, sit facing each other and I wait until he's ready to start, he asked for this so I wait.

He says "I'm concerned about the kids not wearing seat belts when we get in the car". I say back to him "I heard you say that you want to make sure the kids put their seat belts on when we get in the car". Then he says "yes, that's right and I''d like to add blah blah blah. We only go back and forth a couple of times and I "hear" what he's saying.

Only when something comes up and needs to be talked about as a family. One examply is everyone not pulling their weight in the house and helping out because I end up doing it all. Not fair. We will have one soon because the kids are just not interacting. The older ones hate doing anything with the younger etc. There is no "agenda".

Nothing that organized here.
When daughter lived at home, we had dinner nights and discussed everything day to day.
Now that daughter has been out 2 years, we still have dinner 1-3 times a week either here, restaurant, club, etc and still discuss the week, our plans, etc.

I'm fortunate she lives close by.

Nothing formal at all. Just us and daughter. Pretty tight knit group.

Rarely, and only if it is something that affects everyone in the family (and usually "negative" things since we have dinner together nearly every night, we would discuss "positive" stuff during that time). We never "call out" one kid during a meeting - those issues are always handled one on one. I know some families do them on a regular basis so maybe someone will have more input than I do. The last family meeting I can think of was when my mom was diagnosed with cancer the 1st time and I needed to be gone off and on to help her. We wanted to give the kids the news together and talk about how, as a family, we needed to pull together to cover the gaps while I was gone.

Good luck!

Hi J.,

We don't schedule meetings. But we do have dinner together every night. DS is 13 and we make sure the schedule allows for this. We use this time to catch up and discuss anything relevant. For example, we got his final report card from his school. We all read through the 7 pages and used dinner on Sunday to go over the final grades and comments.

"Meetings" are very anxiety provoking for my DS so we tend to approach things a little more organically...this way he doesn't come feeling defensive and/or shut down.

Everyone is different so no one solution works for all. Wishing you well as you navigate this. :-) S.

Ours weren't successful, but they can be very useful.

Make sure you and husband are on the same page before having family meetings.