Family meetings are times for families to come together and discuss issues that affect the household. Topics can be about anything, from school, to chores, to vacation planning. You could also hold meetings just as a way to ensure that your family spends time together on a regular basis, with no agenda to the meetings at all.
Family meetings are a great way to promote open discussion between yourself and your children. Children whose families engage in regular family meetings are less likely to get into trouble, abuse drugs or alcohol, develop depression, or have poor self-esteem.
Any member of the family can facilitate family meetings. Your family may wish to rotate who leads the meetings. This week, you may wish to do so, and then allow each child a turn in the weeks following. The primary job of the meeting facilitator is to make sure that everyone has a chance to speak, and to record important information in a notebook. Younger children may not do so well with facilitating the meeting, so you may want to hold off until they are at least five or six before allowing them to do so.
You may want to establish a format for your meetings. Make sure that everyone understands the format so that they can adhere to it when it is their turn to facilitate. Some topics that you may wish to incorporate into your family meetings may be problems that any family members may be having (and coming up with possible solutions to the problems), positive things that have happened between meetings, and planning of up-and-coming events.
I recommend that you carve out at least 30 minutes each week for family meeting time, and that the day and time remain the same each week. You could hold your meeting at the kitchen table, in the living room, outdoors, or any place where you and your children feel the most comfortable. Be sure to discuss the important issues while keeping a light-hearted atmosphere at your family meetings by playing games or telling jokes.