Once you have children in school, the beginning of the school year is a great time to implement new schedules, rules and chores. It is also a time when you may begin to feel that your family members are running in different directions. Before things get too hectic, you may want to sit down and bring things under control with a family council meeting. If you have teenagers, you may need a meeting every month. Here are five ways to bring your family closer together through a family council.
1) One way to build back up your unity is to create a family mission statement. This idea comes from “7 Habits of Highly Successful Families” by Stephen R Covey. You can sit down as a family and decide what you want to accomplish and what the central purpose of your family is. Be sure that you listen to every idea that your children have. You can read the book to gain more insight on this process.
2) As a family it is important to support each other through struggles and difficulties. If you have on child who is struggling in math and another who is great at it, you can discuss setting up tutoring during family council. (Although I may run this past the children individually first). You may also want to have children trade chores during times of stress for another child. If one child is in the school play, you can have the other family members trade off with her to cover her chores for the week of the performance. This really helps the children see that you work together as a team.
3) You can take time to highlight each child’s accomplishments at family council meetings. It is important that you find something positive to say about each child at these meetings. It needs to be genuine praise. You do not want to have someone leave feeling inferior to another child.
4) Of course these meetings are a great time to schedule out the month. You can plan around work schedules, homework projects, lessons, sports events and mutual activities. The more children you have and the older they are, the more difficult this becomes. When you are doing this be sure to plan in time for family home evening and scripture study.
5) Another great thing you can do is to work on your family history together at the end of each meeting. You may have your children write down their memories of their favorite family vacation or assign them to write on a recent important event. You may have them choose what they write about. If you are more inclined to document using video you could record a family discussion about a favorite event and then edit it together with video of the event (if you have any) as well as pictures.
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Five Topics to Cover in Your Family Council
Family Home Evening: School Goals and Scedules