Family meeting is one of the most effective positive parenting tools. It creates a platform to solve problems and create solutions. What do you think will happen in a situation where parents and their children set time to sit together and talk about issues? Together, they will create cohesion.

Family meetings also create a family tradition and will create many memories. In most traditional family situations, children are not allowed to contribute, their views are not appreciated but in this situation, the difference is so glaring. Children are included.

Family meetings are not easy to start and maintain but with consistency and determination, your family can gain a lot from them. Family meetings make children feel relevant and understood.

Children learn various skills during family meetings, such as listening, respecting differences, verbalizing appreciation and experiencing that mistakes are wonderful opportunities to learn. Children also develop life skills like brainstorming skills and problem-solving skills

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According to Jane Nelsen, a forerunner of Positive Discipline, family meetings have five major components which are designed to make them work. These include:

1. The Agenda
2. Compliments
3. Brainstorming for Solutions
4. Family fun activities such as games, cooking, or popcorn and a movie.
5. Calendar for family fun event

Family Meetings provide an opportunity for parents to:

• Avoid power struggles by respectfully sharing control
• Avoid micromanaging children, so children learn self-discipline
• Listen in ways that invite children to listen
• Respectfully share responsibility
• Create good memories through a family tradition
• Model all of the skills they want their children to learn

We can inculcate family meetings into our routines as well. Growing up, Saturday mornings after fajr was like our family meeting days in my parent’s home. We recite the Qur’an as a family; my dad would also share some of the lessons from the jummah khutbah the previous Friday and we would all discuss. It was also an opportunity for us to stylishly ask for something or say our feelings about anything happening in a home.

You can have an agenda which infuses your family’s Islamic Growth Plan every month to include some ayahs in the Qur’an, Hadith and some stories about the Sahabas, and lessons to be learned from them.

So who is going to start implementing Family Meetings in their home?

I hope you have learnt something. If yes, would you like to join me in the Parenting for Jannah Academy? You should join the waitlist HERE to be notified when next we are open.