How To Be A Fortune 500 Family

 

Those Catholic folks are on to something. The way they use colored smoke to indicate how things are going at the Vatican talks? Ingenius! We could adopt a similar measure here at chez guru girl. If so, every Sunday night you’d see black smoke pouring from our chimney too. This would indicate the status of our recently-instituted “family meeting”.

 

We started this practice 2 weeks ago, after I read an article that said families who do an official, family meeting are officially happier. In the family meeting you are supposed to have each person share what worked well for them in the previous week and what didn’t work so well. There is to be no arguing or shouting, “That’s stupid”.  Everyone’s voice is heard, and in the upcoming week all are to tweak the behaviors that drove everyone else crazy.

This is how the family meeting works in theory. Here’s how it worked in real life. We went around in a circle and shared. The “worked well” category rocked. Lots of smiles and high fives. The “didn’t work so well” category” was trickier. It was hard not to dispute the facts as presented by the 9 year old. It was really, really hard to nod respectfully and not shout, “That’s stupid”. But we did it. Both my fella and I role modeled our asses off.

 

Then it was my turn. I presented my pluses (there were many) and one very big minus. My minus was that the Dynamic Duo need lots of attention and help with, oh, a billion things. Over the past week, it felt like there was a “mom, can you…” request lobbed at me every 3 minutes. I suggested – in a kind and gentle manner --  that the Dynamic Duo could be more independent. I pointed out they are 7 and 9 years old, mature enough to do some of these things for themselves and to demonstrate patience for other requests.

There was a moment of silence and then the 9 year old burst into tears. “You think we’re bad kids,” she sobbed. Huh. The article didn’t say this would happen.  

Despite our rocky start, we’re going to stick with the family meeting. I can see how it shows that all of our voices matter. It also gives us all a feeling of ownership over our family and how it runs. 

There’s a new movement that suggests families borrow from corporations strategies that make the work world run better, with greater employee satisfaction. They’re all detailed in a book called The Secrets Of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler. This book also recommends brainstorming a family mission statement. It’s like a manifesto to be referred to when challenges crop up. (Click this link to see "The Secrets Of Happy Families" by Bruice Feiler at amazon.com.)

I don’t even want to guess the kind of mission statement the Dynamic Duo would come up with for us. Although I’m pretty sure those two would include potty humor as a family value. With adult guidance, I think the mission statement idea is a good one. As parents we impart values to our kids every day. They’re often unspoken. Honesty, responsibility, kindness, communication, service.

Family meetings and mission statements bring our values out into the open. You talk about them, and you evaluate: Did we “walk the talk” this week? If not, reset (and comfort the sobbing family member). If so, do a happy dance and keep it up.

Give the family meeting/mission statement thing a try. You’ll be on your way to being a Fortune 500 Family in no time.