Family Fun

It’s said that you “shouldn’t prioritize your schedule but instead schedule your priorities”. We use a family schedule to plan for fun and for efficiency – yep, recovering but not totally healed from efficiency addiction.. ;p Joking aside, I really believe that agreeing on a plan gives our family the tools for managing a lot whilst also having time for fun things and for flexibility/spontaneity.

We want to do so many things!

The need for a shared calendar became urgent when my eldest daughter started school. Before that both girls were going to the same pre-school and the schedules were pretty similar. It was when I had to manage two different plans including school trips, gym classes and homework that I realized that pure brain power just wasn’t enough.

I wrote “We want to do so many things!” in the subheading for a reason. I’ve always felt how important it is to voice your “wants” instead of your “have to’s”. “I have to go to work” is NOT a good thing to say if you want to feel happy about doing just that. The words you place on your experience will color it and give you different feelings about it.
“I want to read a bedtime story with my girls every night” gives me a totally different feeling than “I have to read a bedtime story..”. I am however stretching that theory a bit here since I really have a hard time with wanting to do chores.

The first tries in getting an overview of all our wants/needs were wall calendars and different sorts of apps. The wall calendar was good since we could all see it, the apps were nice since I could access it from everywhere. The problems however were that my girls didn’t have phones and couldn’t see the calendar and the wall calendar was so small so we missed checking up on it.

Doing everything by myself was becoming impossible

I kept missing to bring packed lunch on the days when either needed it. I failed to remind them to bring the gym bags. We spent many late nights working hard (stressed and angrily) on homework that had been forgotten and was due for the next day.

I also felt very alone in the responsibility for our house. I was the only one who actually had the knowledge and experience of keeping a household. Although I haphazardly tried to get them involved it usually ended up in a fight or in me stepping in and taking over.

The most persuasive factor for figuring out this planning issue was that I had a growing frustration inside. A frustration born out of not spending quality time with my family. Not having time to connect and have fun.

Family meetings

I read. A lot. I believe that there are ideas and answers out there just for the taking. My belief is that I’m responsible for solving my issues and I also believe that there is probably not a problem that I’m faced with that someone else hasn’t already faced and smashed! So I continuously search for solutions to my problems.

The books I read are in the area of personal and family development (intertwined with an occasional Fantasy novel – shout out to Tolkien, Salvatore, Sarandon, Maas, Gaiman and all the other writers doing such an excellent job in bringing stories and characters alive!)

One concept that kept coming up in regards to Family theory was the idea of having Family meetings. The format and purpose was described a bit differently in different sources but the overall idea was the same. A time for the family where everyone was committed to listening and participating.  A time that was scheduled on a weekly basis and that everyone had agreed to prioritize. For more information on the theory of a family meeting I really recommend reading these books:

• Parenting with presence – Practices for raising conscious, confident, caring kids – Susan Stiffelman
• The 7 habits of highly effective families – Steven R Covey

Visual aids

The idea to use visual aids was born from the fact that the kids were young and didn’t read that well yet. The practice grew on us and matured as we went along. My experiences with accelerated learning and NLP made me a true believer in combining the written words with the visual aids. Different colors for different subjects, board for overview and pictures for details.

We planned our meetings for Saturday mornings

It took some time and effort to introduce this practice in my family. I was ready to give up a number of times. We still have some meetings that leave me frustrated about the lack of participation. I try to make the meetings fun and easy. To keep them short and to the point. Kids get restless and I’ve noticed that talking about “everything that has to happen this week” can be really overwhelming.

We’ve been trying out different approaches and come to a structure that works for us. We’ve decided to have our meeting on Saturdays. We start the day with breakfast where we can enjoy sitting still and not having to rush to work/school. After breakfast the girls go do something they want to do and I do some pre-research.

I check the mail correspondence from the teachers for the schedules for next week. I check my own schedule for activities that I need to plan for. Pre-research also mean that I make a preliminary plan for what we will eat for dinner during the week.

When I have a pretty good idea of the week I ask the girls how long they need to finish what they´re doing to come join the meeting. It’s usually between 5-15 minutes. I bring the board and we gather in the kitchen. We walk through the different areas; chores, homework, extra activities, fun times and dinners. We write and set pictures on the board according to how we divide this week’s activities.

Make it fun!

Please don’t believe, like I did, that a family meeting will be something that kids will automatically WANT to participate in. They really don’t. They want to do fun things. Kids know about enjoying life 🙂 One way is to plan for some snacks for the meeting! We usually make some popcorn that we can nibble on.

One important parameter for a good meeting is when I plan something that we can look forward to this week. Having some “good news” or a space in the schedule for spontaneous proposals for fun activities sets a good mood for the meeting.

Want some inspiration and more ideas for a family meeting?

If you want more details and some help in getting started with your family meeting go check out the Lifehack page. You’ll find the areas we cover in our meetings, some examples on definitions of chores as well as pictures that you can use for inspiration for your family board.

It’s really your responsibility to sell this theory to them. Again and again and again. It’s also your responsibility to keep a positive state during the meeting no matter what. The kids will come around and really appreciate these meetings but it takes time. Be persistent, stay positive, keep going with enthusiasm and if you need to cry, scream or just vent frustration look me up on Facebook! Join the group “Pride of Lions” I promise to listen and cheer you on!