Cynthia MacGregor
When an employee has a gripe, a question, or a suggestion, there is a protocol to follow. Of course he can just air his dissatisfaction at the water cooler, which gets it off his chest but won't do anything to resolve the situation, She can drop a suggestion in the suggestion box, if there happens to be one in that office, but then it falls into the Great Void; she has no idea what, if anything was done about her suggestion, or ever will be, or whether it was even considered seriously in the first place. If the employee is lucky enough to have a boss who has an open door policy, she can knock on his door and hope he'll pay attention to her concerns. But, though he means well, he might have his head buried deep in the proposal he was writing or the meeting he's preparing for, or his phone might ring... in short, his divided and distracted attention might be the most she'll get.
But chances are that the company, or the department (in the case of a large company), has regular meetings. And chances are that employees are urged to, or at least welcome to, voice their questions, suggestions, and gripes at these meetings. Just knowing that there is a time and a place when they'll have a chance to speak up about their concerns and vent their feelings gives the employees a good feeling; the company isn't ignoring them. They'll be heard. So instead of grumbling, they continue working, knowing their opportunity will come,
That's one of the functions of a Family Council meeting, too, though hardly the only one. Family Council meetings are the place for family members (parents as well as kids!) to make requests, ask questions, air gripes, and make announcements. Attendance is mandatory. It's incumbent on you, the parent, to make sure there are no valid scheduling conflicts... that you haven't called your Family Council meeting for a time when one of the kids has Scouts, band practice, or some other activity that demands his or her attendance. And it's incumbent on the kids that they not schedule any social activities for that time.
Sunday evenings are a good time in many households for Family Council meetings. With a whole weekend to do homework, the kids should be able to ensure that they can afford the 15 minutes to an hour that the meeting might take. It's not a night when there are many extracurricular activities for the kids, nor are most parents likely to be stuck late at work on a Sunday evening. Of course if you or your spouse have a job or business that does require your working then, or if you belong to a church that holds services Sunday evening, and you're in the habit of attending them, or your daughter's baton group practices on Sunday evenings, you'll pick another time for Family Council meetings.
Meetings can be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or simply whenever needed. The advantages to regular meetings are:
• If everyone knows that every Sunday night, or the first Sunday night of the month, is always Family Council night, nobody will make any conflicting social or other plans for that time.
• If everyone knows that Family Council is coming up soon, it will be easier to hold gripes and problems in abeyance till the next meeting.
But of course, if you have a family that seems to run smoothly, and/or you have only one child, and perhaps a young child at that, you may have little need for a regular meeting, and meetings as needed may be the better plan for you.
In any case, whether you meet weekly, monthly, or on as-needed basis, what are the purposes and uses of a Family Council meeting?
• To make major announcements of interest to or with impact on the whole family: Mom got a new job and will be working different hours; Dad got a new job, and the family will be moving to Seattle; the family has outgrown this house and is looking for larger quarters in the same area; the family is going to spend a week at Grandma's beach house on the Jersey shore this summer; it's time for a new car, and after shopping around, you'll be buying one; due to the family-owned business having a bad year financially, cost-cutting measures will have to be put into effect; Uncle Ed is getting married in May, and you're all going to go to the wedding; you're going to be growing vegetables instead of flowers this year in the garden, and though yard work by the kids isn't compulsory, it will be appreciated... and they might get a kick out of helping to grow their own food.
• To have a discussion on matters on which you want input from all family members: The family is going to get a new pet, either a cat or a dog - let's discuss the relative merits and liabilities of both, and make up our minds which we want to get; either the family can go visit the relatives in Memphis for two weeks this summer, or the kids can go to summer camp for four weeks, but not both - which do they prefer?
• To settle squabbles, hassles and disputes. This is not to be a tattletale session, nor should matters that need to be settled immediately be held over for Family Council meetings, but this is the place to air such gripes as, "Tommy always messes up my room, and then I can't find anything"; "Kim always takes my stuff without asking"; "Vicki gets home from school first and takes the best snacks out of the fridge for herself, and then there's only yucchhy stuff left for me to eat."
• To bring up gripes or requests on the part of the kids that are aimed at you parents: "It's not fair that I have so many chores to do now that I get three hours of homework a night since I started high school this year"; "Tony gets a bigger allowance than me, and I do more chores than he does"; "I've had the same bedtime for two years, now, and I think I should be allowed to stay up later now that I'm older"; "The class hamster had babies - can we adopt one?"
The formality of the setting of a Family Council meeting lends weight to any decision handed down within that framework. That doesn't necessarily mean that the kids are going to accept every decision without grumbling... if you work in a business environment that includes staff meetings, don't you sometimes grumble over edicts handed down by the department manager, business owner, or whoever is in charge? But although the kids may grumble, they're less likely to protest, or rebel. They'll complain, but they'll accept the ruling even so.
If your family doesn't presently have Family Council meetings, why not try them out? You'll find that it's a good forum for exchanging ideas, expressing views, presenting requests and complaints, and lending more weight to edicts handed down by you, the parents... the Chairs of the Board.
Author of over 50 published books (and still going strong), Cynthia MacGregor writes on many subjects, but the majority of her books are aimed either at parents or at kids. Some of her books tackle "difficult" topics, such as two books written for kids that explain divorce and one that deals with stepfamilies, one for little kids that explains death, and another for little kids that explain's Mom's new pregnancy. But she also writes on happier subjects, as in The "I Love You" Book, and with a sense of humor when it's called for, as in What Do You Know About Manners? A former New Yorker, Cynthia has lived in South Florida since 1984.
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