My Domestic Vestige: Family meeting review...

I found yesterday that the family meeting went very well! As our day progressed yesterday, we decided to hold our "Meeting" in the evening. We had an early supper and settled on 7:30pm as a good time. Far enough from bedtime, that Kalynn wont be falling asleep on us, but late enough that she will have run her energy out and cool enough outdoors that we can put the dogs out to prevent distraction (this was mostly for my husband as he is easily distracted by wagging tails and eager puppy eyes)

Preparation:

Before the meeting started, I purchased for $1 a little "Journal" at the dollar store, that I have deemed our family meeting journal. I started off by making a list of the most pertinent issues our family had to discuss.

One of our biggest issues is "Chores". We are an all or nothing kind of family. When I say that, what I mean is, one person does all, and the others do nothing. And to be completely honest, it flip-flops. Instead of working together as a team.......one will do all the work, bust their butt until they are completely burned out, and then the other will step in. At that point, the first party is so drained from their sense of responsibility that they have nothing left to give, leaving the second party all on their own.....therefore creating a viscous cycle that never seems to end.

So our first matter of business, a responsibility chart. Yes, I know, seems kind of sill for us adults to use, but it takes at least 28 days to create a habit. So....this will help keep us on target for those next 28 days. We will mark off who is doing what, with either a "D" for Dad, "M" for Mom, or "K" for Kalynn. That way we can see who is participating where, and can delegate among ourselves in a fair way without pointing fingers (Hey...the chart doesn't lie!) We also wanted to set up a list of daily "Tasks" for Kalynn to accomplish. So together as a family we put together a short list of 6 tasks per day that Kalynn will be responsible for.

Second on our list was some behavior issues we are having with Kalynn. We talked about her manners and our expectations. We discussed why it is rude to burp and pass gas in public, and why we don't raise our voice to adults and hit the dogs. In general, just a basic run down of appropriate social behaviors for a 4 year old little girl.

Then my husband and I allowed Kalynn to take a "break", because she was burning out after about 30min. We allowed her to sit in the same room and watch a cartoon while he and I discussed appropriate consequences for her "problem behaviors". This allowed her the chance to overhear us prior to our discussion. Once her cartoon was over, we called her back and discussed again, her behavior and our expectation. Then we made a point to explain in detail the consequences and then made her repeat it all back to us, so that we were sure that she was paying attention.