Family Meeting Check-In

Remember that book I read, The Secrets of Happy Families? By Bruce Feiler, who writes a column for the NYTimes on family life and gives TED talks on successful families? I really liked that book, and I really like his ideas. Which I mentioned in this post. 

And since that post, we have stuck with family meetings. We have them every Sunday – almost every Sunday - either before or after dinner.  With an agenda and everything. I have this notebook from Staples (from the Martha Stewart Collection, in case you want to run out and get one), and in it I write the agenda, with occasional input from the husband. Here’s a typical agenda:

So we go over the week’s calendar and come up with tasks we have to do. The 13- year-old records everything because she is that way, and I record everything in my master planner, because I am the mom and thus in charge of remembering it all. I usually try to add something deeper to the agenda, maybe we talk about something we are grateful for that week, or an accomplishment, or set goals for the week, or play a round of Bananagrams or read a poem out loud. Then we adjourn. 

Now, I’d really like to tell you that our family meetings are going well. So I will. They are going well. Really, really well. We all love them and look forward to them. 

This might be a teensy exaggeration. 

Now, a big part of the idea behind the family meeting is that everyone participates. That means everyone can add to the agenda. That means that the children have a big role in the meeting itself. 

The other underlying idea is that the family is an agile system. This term originated in the software industry and has spread to other businesses. It refers to self-correcting project management. In other words, instead of working on a project from beginning to end, then handing it off for review, regular meetings ensure that there are no bad bugs in the system, and allow for fixes before the product is complete, when it would be much harder to change. Meetings are for self-correcting. You look at problems that crop up and tweak them immediately, rather than run farther and farther off course with no correction until your project is completed (or your children grow up and run as far away from you as they can as fast as they can and start intensive therapy.)

Well, this participation and self-correcting aspect (remember, these are fundamental to the idea) have been kind of hard to implement. I’m just not sure I have total buy-in from the key players, possibly including myself. 

Just recently, I heard a snippet Brucie’s TED talk on the family meeting, and he said that you ask at each meeting, What has been working well this week in our family, and what hasn’t been working well? So, I have been a little FRUStrated lately by the laundry situation. The children are supposed to do their own laundry on Sundays. We tried other days, but Sundays was decided to be the best day. 

Yeah. Well, guess what? Laundry isn’t getting done. Maybe it’s getting started on Sunday, but it’s not getting done. And Someone is beginning to suspect there is a strategy behind this – if the laundry molders in the machine long enough, and school starts, then Someone Else will take over and do it. 

Do I need to explain this photo? I think not. 

So. The husband and I were walking the dog, and I mentioned this laundry situation and the idea that the kids were supposed to contribute to the meeting and everyone is supposed to draw up a list of his or her responsibilities at family meeting so there is something to check in about. So I say to the husband, "Maybe we should talk about the laundry, which is definitely not working." And I also want to draw up the lists of responsibilities. So we decide that since the 17 yo is in the middle of applications and school, we will forego doing both at the next meeting and just lay the ground work for the laundry situation by having everyone draw up that list of responsibilities. 

So here is how it went. 

Ding, ding, ding, everyone to family meeting. 12^th grader stands by table, looking at her phone. 8^th grader grabs the Martha Stewart Collection notebook and a sharpened pencil and is ready. We go over old business. We go over the calendar. I fail to note that I’ve written down that the husband has ballet pick-up duties on Monday night, which is not the usual schedule.

We move on the agenda item – activity: list responsibilities. I pass out paper and pencils. We begin to write our lists. Except the 17 yo. Who refuses. 

Why won’t she do this, we ask?

"I just think there is a hidden agenda," she says. 

"What do you mean?" We say.

"Well, obviously, you want me to write ‘laundry,’ and I’m not getting the laundry done." 

Ahem. 

So we had to admit that, yes, the laundry situation is part of it. But also, the point is to write down our responsibilities to ourselves as well as basic chores. (of which there are way too few, probably, for us to create contributing members of society, but I feel helpless to change that.) 

More balking. 

Eventually, she wrote this: 

Then we adjourned the meeting. 

The next night, Monday, we forgot to pick up her from ballet.

So you can see it is all going very smoothly.

#TBT Secrets of Successful Families

I published this post exactly two years ago today. I'm reposting it for a good reason. Soon I will have an update on the family meeting. It is all ready to go, but I'm hoping a certain newspaper might want it for a certain blog and I'm waiting to hear. If not, I'll just plunk it down in here for you, Readers. Wish me good luck!

Some of my readers might be unfamiliar with "#TBT".  TBT is an acronym for "Throwback Thursday." What does Throwback Thursday mean? Well, it means you post something from your past on your social media streams on Facebook or Twitter or maybe Instagram - I wouldn't know because I'm not on Instagram.  Often people post adorable childhood pictures of themselves. Then, when you have posted your picture, you add this symbol #TBT.

While I have many of those adorable pictures, I am restraining myself. Why on earth would I invite comparison?  I'm adapting TBT for my purposes.

Secret of Successful Families: The Family Meeting

Bruce Feiler sums up his research on happy families by offering a “nonlist list of things that happy families do.” This list consists of the following three nonrule rules:

1. Adapt all the time. 
2. Talk. A lot. 
3. Go Out and Play.

Feiler offers multitudes of ways to follow each of these nonrules. One of them is the family meeting. The family meeting appeals to me for several reasons.

• First of all, there is so much in a minute. You don’t even have to have relatives who are psychoanalysts to know this. Nor do you have to be a mindfulness meditation expert. Just think about how (surprisingly) much it hurts if a driver passes you and gives you the finger, for example. And that’s someone you don’t even know, and a situation that’s not even personal. Now think about all the casual remarks that pass among family members rushing around to ballet and soccer and work that affect you. A stray snap on a day when you have a short fuse can have its own sort of a butterfly effect on your mood and life. Yes, it’s true, I do have relatives who are psychoanalysts, AND I practice mindfulness meditation, so I may be a bit more invested in what’s going on under the surface in a moment than most. In fact, this may be the secret to my failure more than anything else – all that time parsing and analyzing can get you into a thoroughly tangled state of conflict and make it hard to move forward with your goals. But since that last sentence completely undermines what I’m getting at, let’s pretend that I’m 100% in favor of trying to understand your emotions in a situation, so that you can make an informed decision, or can react intentionally instead of instinctively. This takes time, and conversation. A meeting provides a forum to catch some of those moments that could use a little dissecting: To address some of those moments that result in decisions on the fly – decisions and their effects that never get fully explained.

• Second of all, a family meeting sounds like a reasonable idea when it’s hard to find regular nights to eat together because this one’s got an extra rehearsal and that one’s soccer game time changed and that one forgot he had to teach his medical students and the other one has a book club, because all of those ones have book clubs; you’re not actually a suburban mommy if you don’t - but that’s another story. These meetings don’t have to be long. They shouldn’t be long. Sunday night, which Bruce uses, seems like a good time to me. Usually everyone is home then, and there’s an opportunity to look at the calendar. This doesn’t guarantee that we won’t be scrambling for forgotten appointments, but it does help us become aware of our commitments, at least for a moment, together. This group moment might well improve the chances that we’ll get where we need to be on time. I make no promises, nor do I have any proof, since as of this writing, our family has had only one family meeting.

• Third of all, the family meeting, as Bruce describes it, is child-centered. Or to be more precise, while parents may set the agenda, the children should be vocal participants. This gives them practice explaining themselves, exploring and expressing their opinions, and listening to others’, which I defy anyone to deny is good life training. Since the message in my family of origin was “Children should be seen and not heard,” this idea appeals to my rebellious inner child. Let the children be heard and seen. Then let the parents make final decisions.

• And last of all, the family meeting is a way to solidify or otherwise emphasize the idea of the family unit as a unit. I like this idea of emphasizing the family as a unit. It’s one of Bruce’s ideas that’s so fundamental you don’t even see it: To be a successful family involves focusing on the family itself, and seeing it as a working group, not just as a staging ground for “real life.”

The Meeting

Now, I’d been mulling this idea for a while. I was intrigued and wanted to do it, despite the hoke factor. So when the 5^th grader came home, I think it was the very day I behaved so admirably at the DARE assembly, with a letter announcing that she’d won a leadership award, and that there would be a ceremony at an arena at a community college to recognize her and the other recipients, I had my entrée. 

Readers, if you would kindly lower your bayonets, I will continue. After feeling my moment of pride in my offspring – a moment immediately followed by one of complete amazement: I have never won thing one for leadership – I realized that this ceremony would conflict with the 9^thgrader’s ballet schedule. Frankly, that went without saying, since the 9^thgrader spends less time not dancing than she does dancing. So the question was, should she miss the classes, which were in rehearsals for her end of the year performance, to attend her sister’s ceremony? Perfect for a family meeting. 

I’d like to tell you that each participant met the announcement with equal enthusiasm; but that would be a lie. The husband was on board – surprising to me, considering the aforementioned hoke factor.  He was even willing to commit to weekly meetings. However, when we told the children we were having a meeting,  the 9^th grader’s reaction was, “Oh no,” and the 5^th grader’s was, “Are we in trouble?” 

But it went well. Or at least, it didn’t go badly. When I brought up the awards ceremony - ballet schedule conflict, I tried to remember Bruce’s advice to let the children do a lot of the talking. The 5^th grader immediately announced that she wanted her sister to attend her award ceremony. The 9^th grader countered immediately with acquiescence. Conflict resolved? More like conflict swept underground. I suddenly saw how good an idea a family meeting was. I think it’s the kind of thing that might just help keep people close. If you’re the kind of person who acquiesces because your sister states a strong preference, despite your own mixed feelings, then eventually, you may avoid your sister, to avoid hearing her state her preferences. But if your sister can start to understand that her preference acts like a command, then she may begin to be a little more careful and less categorical – more empathetic – in stating it. 

Since their conversation had apparently ended, it was up to me and the husband to stir the pot. How did the 9^th grader feel about missing the ballet class to go to the ceremony? For that matter, how would the 9^thgrader feel about having her sister at her upcoming recital? And how would the 5^th grader feel about the looming conflict over missing a soccer tournament to go to (another) dance recital? I wanted the conversation to be both concrete (about this particular conflict) and hypothetical (attending each others’ awards and recitals, etc.) Okay, I know, this may be slightly nauseating, as if I envision a golden-paved road of award upon award for my children, stretching into the future. However, even the most curmudgenly reader must admit there are many milestones ahead (God willing), with attendant ceremonies. It seems worthwhile to figure out who needs to go to what when.  But mostly, I wanted the big sister to express her preferences and feelings about attending her sister’s award ceremony, and to see how important her presence was to her younger sister. Also, I wanted the little sister to realize that her big sister would be sacrificing something very important to her (dance class) at a difficult time (rehearsing for upcoming recital). 

The upshot was that we, the parental units, listened to the children, and then we told them we would make a decision. Meeting adjourned. Not exactly an unqualified success, but not terrible, either. Later, the 9^th grader came to us privately and said she didn’t want to miss her class. We told her we had wanted her to say that at the meeting so that the 5^th grader would know, but of course she hadn’t wanted to hurt her sister’s feelings. I suppose immediate openness was too much to expect from one meeting. 

In the end, we decided the 9^th grader should go to the ceremony. In private, I told the 5^th grader that her sister was making a sacrifice by missing her rehearsal. The 5^th grader said, “Now you are making me feel guilty.” I told her I wasn’t trying to make her feel guilty as much as I was trying to make her appreciate that her sister was doing something nice for her – and that she ought to thank her. 

So the 9^th grader came to the ceremony. On the way, the 5^th grader thanked her for missing rehearsal. Afterwards, the 9^th grader hugged the 5^th grader.

Overall, I thought it was good for the 9^th grader to hear her sister characterized as a leader, and good for the 5^th grader to know her sister heard that characterization. 

We haven’t had a family meeting since; but I stand by the process. 

Motherhood Check-In

So this morning started out well - and by well I mean poorly. I rearranged the carpool schedule to make it to a physical therapy appointment at 8 am, at a place twenty minutes away, because everything is twenty minutes away from me, except the coffee shop and the library, the reasons I liked this town; anyway, I arrived, parked askew because I was a minute late, and discovered that my appointment was for a different day. Yup. 

Then I had to decide whether to drive all the way home and then back out again for my next appointment (dermatologist for annual skin check), also twenty minutes away, or whether to go somewhere for coffee. Naturlich, I had no book with me, because I’d been running late. So I had to buy a magazine. So I went to the coffee shop near my next appointment and read Psychology Today. 

Well, so here’s a thing. Never one to miss an opportunity for reassurance, I finally did ask the dermatologist about my itchy feet. Remember those? The dermatologist said I had itchy feet because of dry skin - and offered a solution. The solution involves a solution, a solution of baking powder and water. I’m to soak my feet in this solution, then dry them, then apply a heavy moisturizing cream. I’m to do so for several days in a row, and then, voilà. This will make me feel better than getting a cheap pedicure at the local nail salon where the workers might be abused and poisoned, according to my favorite paper. 

In other news, in case you haven't noticed, both my children are teens now. This means that when I make myself available to them after school by lingering around the kitchen and doing dishes, there is no converstaion. Both are bowed over their electronic devices and simultaneously inhaling snacks. Silence is broken only by requests for money or signatures on school forms. 

At this point, I’m the chauffeur. They’ve figured out my old scam that allowed me to eavesdrop on their conversations. All I had to do back then, once upon a time, when they shushed one another in front of me, was say, “Oh, don’t worry. I can hear you, but I don’t know what you’re saying. I don’t speak kid.” Then they’d resume talking in front of me. "Don't worry, she doesn't speak kid," I heard one of them say to another friend once and I did a (internal) victory dance.

Those days are gone. Now I’m password-excluded from their Instagram and Tumblr accounts and text messages. Never mind that the experts insist parents should have those passwords and be checking those accounts regularly. Not happening in my house. I can’t remember my own passwords. What am I going to do about theirs? And they keep changing them anyway. And making other accounts that I don’t know about. Except that I know about their existence. 

At this point, as Madeleine Levine unreassuringly pointed out in her book Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success, my influence is basically nil. It’s all peers all the time now. So if I haven’t imprinted upon my offspring to this point, tough luck. "Tough titties" as we used to say with a giggle back in fourth grade. Childhood is really not a time of innocence, Readers.

On top of that, I read in the Sunday NYTimes that daughters of working mothers earn 23% more than daughters of stay-at-home-mothers (SAHM’s). This led to a (totally not at ALL defensive) conversation last night after our family meeting about how I am not “just” a SAHM. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Ahem, ahem. But that I do work professionally - I’m a writer. I just don’t earn any money to speak of. But I work. Do they think of me as working, I inquired? They, being somewhat clever children, quickly responded that of course they think of me as working. 

Then I said, "Well, my feeling is this. If it turns out that it is better for you that I am a working mother, then I am a working mother. If it is better for you that I am a SAHM, then that is what I am. Because that is what I’m about. What is best for you."

And I have to say, that gave at least one of them pause. I saw it. The pause it gave her. So there was a moment when one of them was listening. I’ll take it.