The National Family Meeting Association was founded to promote positive, creative, and collabrative family meetings within the home - which are a proven tool for building strong family communication.
Family Meetings help build a solid family unit
Since family meetings involve communication, and communication is a keystone for any relationship, it follows that family meetings are vital for strengthening the family unit. If you aren’t actively working toward family unity, then you are drifting toward family disintegration. Either way, you are developing something. Family meetings are one way to make sure you are working toward a positive outcome.
Family counselors, social workers, and faith community leaders agree that one of the major benefits of a family meeting is the freedom to speak one’s opinion on a given topic. This is especially important for younger children. While the final decision will be made by either the parents or a family vote (depending on the decision), it gives a child a good feeling to know that his or her opinion on the subject is important to the rest of the family.
As personal thoughts and opinions are shared, other benefits will naturally follow. For example, family members can learn the fine art of respecting another person’s opinion, even when it is different from your own. Working through the decision-making process as a family is also a way for younger children to see how to arrive at a mutually acceptable decision without insisting on one way or the other.
Why are Family Meetings Important?
Consistently meeting at a set time can be challenging at first. In fact, if a family decides to have weekly meetings, it will take about six to eight weeks before the whole family feels settled and in the routine of family meetings. Once you are settled, you could decide (as a family) whether or not to change to bi-weekly meetings. Meeting once a month for a family meeting is better than not meeting at all, but don’t expect the family to settle into the family meeting routine.
At the first meeting, try to help your family understand the concept of and the reason for a weekly family meeting. It’s supposed to be a time for the family to draw together; not a just a set time to get a lecture from parents. Establish the importance of meeting together, and discuss how the meetings will benefit each family member. So, how will the meetings benefit each family member?
From the founder...
I founded the National Family Meeting Association because I realized that too often, family members may live under the same roof, but not really know each other. Often friends and other adult role models meet the emotional needs that should be initially met in the home.
After careful thought about how the family meetings would be made available to families, the National Family Meeting Association was born. I want to share solutions with families so that they can enjoy family meetings that are effective, easy, enjoyable, enthusiastic, effective, encouraging, energizing, entertaining, and edifying for every family member.
