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DECEMBER
2003 - PRIVILEGES,
RESPONSIBILITIES AND FAMILY MEETINGS
Recently I was inspired by a speaker that came to my children's elementary
school to speak on different learning styles. She had some great information
regarding homework and parenting also. I'll try to summarize her thoughts
here. Her name is Jacquelyne Fisher. She is an educational consultant
who was also a teacher.
I really liked her thoughts on privileges and responsibilities. She
said that our love as parents, food and shelter are the essentials -
the givens, everything else is a privilege and so negotiable. She stated
that often we give away everything before the responsibilities are done
and so we have no "carrots" to dangle in front of our children.
It is much easier to state when these responsibilities are completed,
then this privilege is available. An easy thing to remember - "When
____, then _____". Since I had recently planned on restarting our
family meeting, this was a perfect time to list our responsibilities
and privileges. Jacquelyne felt that we needed to have contracts within
the family; written explanations of responsibilities and privileges.
And although I had a few job charts, I realized we had never sat down
and listed everything for the children to see. Once we got started,
our list of privileges was quite long.
Hopefully the kids were able to appreciate all we have. I was really
impressed when my son stated emphatically, "It's a privilege to
go to our school!" And it was good to list all the responsibilities.
Although most were known as part of their morning and evening job charts,
other non-tangible ones were good to write down, i.e. being helpful,
listening, positive tone of voice, etc.
As a sideline, for those of you who aren't familiar with family meetings,
Don Dinkmeyer, in Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP),
has a great explanation of family meetings; when a family might be ready
(he states if children can communicate, then they are ready) and what
the procedure is, etc. Basically, it's a great place to come together
at a regularly scheduled time to discuss family business. However, family
meetings are not just gripe sessions with the parents dominating. They
are team meetings in today's terms where everyone gets a say and brainstorming
from all members is a way to solve problems, not just gripe about them.
It's also important to start with positive statements about the way
the family is working together, problems that have become resolved.
Dinkmeyer suggests having at least the first meeting involving planning
of family fun time together.
I was glad to get back to our family meetings. During the problem solving
phase, the kids brought up that they fight too much, so we brainstormed
on things to do when someone is bothering you. Although just "being
nice" was mentioned, it is not realistic that we will always be
able to be nice, so we needed to restate what to do when you're mad
at someone or not getting along. We could control ourselves, not others.
So when someone was not acting the way they wanted, they needed to hear
again what they could do. It's OK to be angry, it's what you do when
you're angry that matters. They also brought up that they could help
with the dishes, so we started rotating the job with one time per week
per person, with Mommy or Daddy picking up the extra days. It was good
for them to see on another chart, when each person did the dishes and
to see how we were dividing the work to get the job done. Of course
if I had just stated that we needed to start sharing the dishes, it
would have been met with lots of groans, but since they suggested it,
the process was pretty painless. The second week, we didn't have much
to discuss, but it was good to go over what was working better and give
them a place to solve problems if needed. We usually follow family meetings
with "game night".
Back to Jacquelyne and homework. She gave some tips on how to make it
go more smoothly.
1. Have a set time for homework each day. (Since our schedule is different
every day, we went over when each day homework would occur - on piano
lesson day those not having a lesson would do homework while they waited).
2. Have a specific place set up with materials needed. For me I need
to have separate places at least for the twins so that they aren't competing
over the same homework.
3. Have a quiet time whether they have homework or not. If they don't
have homework then the homework time can be used for reading, studying
extra on a subject, etc.
4. Set an example by doing your "homework" - reading things
you have to do, bills, etc. This way you are setting a good example
and are available when needed for helping with homework.
Simple tips, but useful, especially as my children move into the years
when they have more homework. Right now my daughter has moved into the
intermediate building (grades 4, 5, 6) and is more responsible for her
own homework. It has been a struggle to get her to remember to bring
home what she needs to work on. With some brainstorming on what she
could do to remember her homework everyday she is doing better.
I am so glad that our children's school has put an effort on helping
us help our children to learn and on parenting issues. We have a parenting
book library in the office and have parent education talks provided.
It's so nice to keep getting educated for the most challenging job we'll
ever have, but one that comes with no certification or license.
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