The article mentioned some good steps to take:1. Start with a plan. Choose a time and place for the meeting.
2. Whiteboard items. Jot down things on a whiteboard during the week so you can discuss them at the meeting when cooler minds are prevailing.
3. Go over the family schedule of events and changes to routine, discuss plans for holidays, etc.
4. Give rewards like having the kids choose a meal for the week, etc.
Sounds good to me. We have a whiteboard in the kitchen right now that my mother refers to so she knows what Art and I are planning for the week. Our meetings even now are at every dinner so we don't need any formal time to meet.
I suppose modern families are having a difficult time getting together. My mother said one of the most important pieces of advice her father gave her before she left home was to always have dinners together. Art and I tried to always make sure we had family dinners where TV was NOT allowed. I wish more families could do that now.
OMG. LOL.
ReplyDeleteI really was/am stunned by this template you are usig, Kay. It is like you look when you come from one of them fabulous makeover thingys my wife when to. She came back looking like a movie star, and you did too.
I saw you over at sixmats blog this morning or at another blog there, I used to be part of the Japan Blog network, and asked sixmats why my icon wasn't showing up? Anyway, I have a blog about Japan, from 1953 - 1956. It has been remade many times. Once i fill it with a thousand or so photos (which takes a while) then I start over. LOL If you are interested...
http://sendai-shi.blogspot.com/
Here is the reply I left when you commented on my blog about handwriting...
It was part of a business I started a long time ago. I ran it until I was tapped by Parker Pen Ltd to do a 13-week television series, which I did, and it was shown around the world. Then the business was purchased by another company and I had a no compete clause for 5 years so I pretty much got out of it. That all happened in 1989. I think? LOL
Well, at the monastery where I volunteered meals were in silence. I think the nuns didn't want meal time to turn into a planning session for work matters.
ReplyDeleteFamily meal-meetings, that's a different kettle of fish.
We always had dinner together, with no TV, but we also had family meetings when there was something "big" to discuss, or some change to our normal routine, our kids loved family meetings :)
ReplyDeleteNow that its just the two of us, we still have dinner together every night, I must admit sometimes in front of the TV, but we also have the odd "we have something to discuss" time here and there...
And I agree families should eat dinner together every day...and hopefully the food will be not be take out eaten out of the containers at least not on a regular basis.
From what I've seen on tv, family dinners are becoming a thing of the past...very sad.
Have a wonderful Saturday
blessings,
Niki
I have been alone at home since my husband died ,but whenever I have visitors or the children staying we have no time for TV.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your visit. The house in my header was a gift of a father to his daughter in the first part of the last century. Now it's a restaurant.
I liked this template so much, Kay, that I found it on blogger and so far have put my birds blog on it. I have some work to do on it yet, but don't think that blog will ever be as attractive as this one.
ReplyDeleteWe had daily "family meetings" at the dinner table too. And NO TV! Even if I listened to the local radio station, it was a big "no no" for my kids. Kids just need the full attention of their parents at least once a day!
ReplyDeleteWe eat at our dinner table daily. My kids thinks it's weird when friends don't do that. When they have friends over they eat at our table too. Shane and I were just talking about letting the kids eat in their room on Valentine's Day so we can have a romantic dinner at home! That would be a HUGE treat for them. The only time they ever do that is if they are in bed sick:( Shane's family never ate at the table, that was a big adjustment for him! They grabbed their plate and sat in front of the tv!! Our whiteboard is the calendar. If you have something coming up you write it on the calendar. It is easy for you to tell me or dad and we forget, BUT we look at the calendar daily.
ReplyDeletenowadays you'd have to unplug everyone including the mom...lol! We have in our church weekly meetings called Family Home Evenings on Monday nites where a short lesson is given, songs sung, prayers given and also refreshments and games played. A great tradition.
ReplyDeleteWhen our sons were young it was just them and me for supper during the week as Christopher didn't get home until too late to join us. Then as they got older, different activities came along that intruded on a 'family dinner'. But we did always have a family sit-down lunch on Sundays, and 'family meetings' whenever they were called for. These days Christopher and I enjoy watching the television when we have supper, if it's just the two of us, but we have lots of talking time when we're out driving or walking.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. We had dinner, always together, no excuse for late and it was a time to share.
ReplyDeleteHow simple it used to be.
We no longer have family dinners on a nightly basis because of our different schedules. However, dinner is usually ready at 6 pm and we eat when we can.
ReplyDeleteI have two teens, one who is in sports and Boy Scouts, the other who is usually ears deep in homework or artwork. We ALWAYS have dinner together, no TV. (Actually, we don't have TV, so that's not an issue) And we always begin our meal with praying for a family whose Christmas card we've pulled from the stack. We pray for that family each dinner that week -- even if we go out to dinner.
ReplyDeleteWe rarely have family meetings, because as you said, it all gets done at the dinner table. It's going to be a shock to my kids when they go to college and realize they've been so deprived.
As busy as our kids were we managed to have family dinner almost every night. Tom and I still do. But we do have the kitchen TV on, turned to the news. Once when the kids wanted something else on, I was shocked (silly me) but answered "No. It's the news or nothing."
ReplyDeleteWhat your mother said is very true. My wife and I always try to have a dinner together and so far we have been following this rule diligently. Believe it or not, we don't have a TV at home!!!
ReplyDeletewell I'm grateful for my smart phone which helps me keep in contact with everyone on an instantaneous basis, but agreed, family time is irreplaceable.
ReplyDeleteWhen my kids were in high school, they were very active in sports and other extracurricular activities and made life and meals complicated. One morning, my son asked what the days agenda held and I answered, "After I pick you two up from your practices, we're going to have supper -- just like a real family!!!! They cheered!
ReplyDeleteDinner time at our house was a great communication and sharing time.
Sixmats. That is how big a home is. Or a room in a home is made so that so many mats will fit. Six mats is the name of a blogger friend whose first rental apartment was 6 mats. I forgot how large a mat is made from rice straw, finely woven. That is the reason you must take your shoes off before entering a house.
ReplyDeletehttp://sixmats.blogspot.com/
That is his blog in Japan. He is an American who moved to Japan and has lived there for a number of years. He took the name for his blow, sixmats, from the size of the apartment he rented when he first got there.
The template is the layout you are using for your new blog. I looked at view source (right click on template and scroll down a little and you can see it is named, Sand Dollar by Jason Sutter). So I was trying to find it was right in front of me all the time.
It is a big job, for me, but I have converted over, My Birds Blog and am still working on Abraham Lincolns Blog.
Your's came out perfect. Your header picture is the cat's meow. I don't have a single picture even close to that. You would think I would as I was at http://www.butchartgardens.com/ in Victoria in 1997 that I could find something.
Abe: Thank you very much, Abe. Yes, Sand Dollar is actually an old design. I tried one of the new templates, but people said they preferred this one so I'm back to the template design I started with.
ReplyDeleteAhhh... you were talking about the tatami mats. Got it!
My husband and I send our schedules to each other via our smart phones. We've done that for years. It started when we both had Palm Pilots. We always try to make sure that our calendars are straight for the week on Sundays. When he was a high school principal, we couldn't have survived without doing this.
ReplyDeleteMy family....forget it! LOL
ReplyDeleteAloha
Comfort Spiral
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Amoeba and I were both raised with nightly family dinners and even though there is just the two of us, we still follow that tradition.
ReplyDeleteThose family dinners are important for so many reasons. I loved the times we had together, still do.
ReplyDeleteNow a days families don't eat at the dinner table all the time. I know I miss having dinner time with our family, we always found out what the kids were doing during the day, and they would ask us also.Thank you for coming by, have a nice Sunday.
ReplyDeleteLove you comment "It was called dinner."
ReplyDelete