Family Meetings: Lorraine Pursell, MA- NBC TV Segment
Male Host: 9:50 on North Dakota Today. You know it happens, technical problems here. So what we’re going to do now is talk about family meetings.
Female Host: That’s right.
Kevin: Welcome back to North Dakota Today. Time once again for the NDT Kids’ Connection. Lorraine Pursell joins us, as usual. She’s the expert on this. She is an international bestselling author and a family harmony expert. Welcome back once again.
Lorraine: Hi, Kevin.
Kevin: This one, the topic today, the weekly family meeting. How many of you at home have a weekly family meeting? Let’s just start there. How many families actually do that?
Lorraine I don’t think very many.
Kevin: Yeah. That would be my guess too. Now I’m going to start with a personal experience. We tried this and we, growing up me and my brothers and sisters, we knew that when it was time for the family meeting it was never a good thing. It was dun-dun-dun.
Lorraine: Oh, gosh.
Kevin: Yeah. So I’m assuming that’s not the best approach.
Lorraine: No. No, it’s not a place for mom and dad to vent.
[Laughter]
Kevin: Yeah.
Lorraine: It’s actually a place for everyone to get involved and everyone to put in their two cents’ worth. And one of the great questions to ask is what went well this week? Pause. Let everybody say what went well this week. What do we need to work on for next week? Now the ideas start coming and take your child’s inputs seriously and actually write it down as if you’re a secretary.
Kevin: How about this, if I can stop you right there? Can this weekly family meeting be – does it have to be so structured that you’re all meeting – gathering around the living room coffee table or can you do it during dinner time? Is that a good idea?
Lorraine: You can do it during dinner time. You can make it an occasion for fun, like say once we get this meeting done we’re going to have pizza together or we’re going to make pizza together or we’re going to plan a flower bed where the kids actually chose the flowers to put in, or we’re going to do some kind of family project or go to a park or have it at the park.
Kevin: Once again, this is not a gripe session.
Lorraine: No. No, it’s not. It’s not. The premise is that this family, what does it take for this family to run smoothly where everyone’s needs are met? So if everyone’s rushing out the door, how can we make that a little bit better? Does it mean setting the alarm 15 minutes early? Does it mean all of us, because you’re complaining about the food I’m making, so then we’re going to all sit down and plan the menu together?
Kevin: If you don’t like it, what’s your idea?
Lorraine: Then we’re all going to make the grocery list and all go down and shop together too. So that’s giving them incredible life skills.
Kevin: So I understand how your teenaged kids or maybe your preteens would get this, but what about the smaller kids if they’re like seven or five or even younger?
Lorraine: Oh, yeah, get them involved. They night say, “Oh, yeah, well my teddy bear didn’t make it to school on time.” Who knows what they’re going to say? “My teddy bear didn’t make it to school on time.” Great. So just get them involved. Pull that out of them so that they want to be involved. And this is really important: the more you get from them while they’re in this meeting, the more buy-in you’re going to get during the week because it was their idea.
Kevin: Okay, they feel vested in this.
Lorraine: They feel vested. They feel important and that’s the whole thing. You’re setting the groundwork for involvement in the family.
Kevin: Real quick here before we run out of time, is this the proper time to single out one of the kids? “Now, Janie, you didn’t do this” or “Johnny” –
Lorraine: I don’t think so.
Kevin: No, you don’t single any one child out.
Lorraine: I think that might be something to do privately, but not – because we don’t want to shame our children.
Kevin: This sounds a lot like a business model.
Lorraine: May be.
Kevin: I’ve got to tell you, it really does.
Lorraine: Yeah, my bachelor’s is in organizational behavior.
[Laughter]
Kevin: Maybe this is where that’s coming in. All right.
Lorraine: Yeah, but no it’s a place for cooperation and collaboration.
Kevin: All right.
Lorraine: The family team, yeah.
Kevin: All right. Very good. Quickly here, stopyellingatyourkids.com. That’s where we can go for more information. That is your website. What’s the real quick history of that?
Lorraine: Well, I used to yell at my son and that’s when I woke up and said, “Aahh! I need help!”
[Laughter]
Kevin: Okay.
Lorraine: I went to counseling. I became a counselor. And so it’s an e-book that’s just packed with things that are support for parents, believe it or not. It’s not me shaming you.
Kevin: All right.
Lorraine: It’s how do you take care of yourself so that you’re not so stressed and you can actually relax and enjoy your children?
Kevin: And it’s free.
Lorraine: And it’s free!
Kevin: Stopyellingatyourkids.com. Check it out. Thank you so much, Lorraine.
Lorraine: Thank you, Kevin.
Make Family Meetings Meaningful with these useful shortcuts. Learn more about closeness: Go to www.StopYellingAtYourKids.com now for Lorraine’s FREE e-Book