Family Meetings (Re-Release)

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Welcome to The Most Important
Thing.

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I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld.
And I'm Greg Neufeld.

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And together, we're exploring
how high performing families

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build culture at home.
Join us as we distill meaty

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topics into digestible,
actionable experiments that we

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can all try with our families.
Because after all, family is the

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most important thing.
Sure is, Danielle.

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So let's dig in, shall we?
Yes, let's.

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All right.
In 2013, New York Times family

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columnist Bruce Feiler wrote a
best selling book on the secrets

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of happy families, in which he
presented over 200 practical

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strategies to enhance family
life.

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But the most important thing?
Weekly family meetings.

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In fact, Bruce even states
weekly family meetings quickly

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became the single most impactful
idea we introduced into our

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lives since the birth of our
children.

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That's a big state.
It's a big statement, especially

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for somebody who literally wrote
the book on happy families.

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He sure did.
So after reading that, I wanted

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to suggest that we run this as
an experiment.

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OK, OK, family meetings.
Family meetings, we can do this.

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All right, So I dug into some
research.

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I didn't want to just take
Bruce's advice, so I set out to

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research who else is talking
about this tool and what

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patterns or ideas consistently
show up and would be actionable

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for a young family.
And I came up with a three

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ingredient recipe.
All right, Do it consistently,

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keep it short and focus on fun.
Sound doable so far I.

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Think we can do those things?
OK, cool.

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So let's unpack what those mean
together and feel free to

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pressure test me.
OK, first thing, do it

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consistently.
What this really comes down to

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is ritual.
What I learned is that kids and

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adults alike will learn to
expect this time.

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I personally, already just
knowing that we now that you've

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said yes, are going to have a
family meeting this weekend,

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love this idea of making space
for things that may come up

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during the week that we don't
necessarily have time to talk

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about in the moment.
Actually, for this, the most

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actionable tip that I read was
to post a piece of paper

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publicly where family members
can jot down things that they

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come up with that can be
considered as agenda items for

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the family meeting.
It's very cute.

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I love that you did that.
You use double sided tape

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single.
Sided.

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I use masking tape so that we
can have one every week.

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I love you.
I love you for not using.

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I know because you'd be the one
that would get upset about the

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walls, so there's that.
Well, massive action taker.

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My wife puts those sheets there
immediately after reading this

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book.
So it means that we're already

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looking at the three ingredient
recipe as something that we're

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going to tackle ASAP, right?
I mean why I would delay that's?

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Right.
Once I learned something, I put

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it into action.
You know that, Yes.

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OK, Second, keep it short.
Everyone seems to have different

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views on the agenda, and I'll
link to some specific ideas in

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the show notes because some of
them I think are great.

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But it's consistently suggested
to keep it simple, especially at

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1st, and avoid tackling too much
too soon. 3 Focus on fun.

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The third and final ingredient
is be silly and have fun.

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So end the meeting with a
dopamine boost, whether that's a

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snack or a quick game or a story
or maybe all three.

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Sounds good, we can do that.
And then just a quick aside on

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some things to avoid.
And #1 is a biggie for me to

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avoid letting the parents take
over the meeting.

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After all, this is about
fostering team mentality and

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belonging.
It's not about parenting.

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Yeah, slippery slope.
We're not talking about who did

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what this week and how we can
correct that.

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This is a family meeting to
build the habit of having family

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meetings and starting with
things that are manageable, that

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are going to be fun for
everybody.

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And two, don't give up if the
first meeting doesn't go well.

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Change the name, change the
time, change the agenda, but

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just keep going.
Yeah, changing names, actually.

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Interesting.
I saw that you downstairs wrote

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down a couple of alternatives.
I think that's pretty smart.

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Family meeting for me shows up
as like exactly the things to

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avoid, which is like family
meeting.

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Yeah, well, when you look up
family meeting, often times like

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the only literature, like true
academic research I found about

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it is about like
intergenerational family wealth.

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That's a whole nother topic.
You know, when they have like

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the annual family meeting, that
is not what we're going for

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here.
Let's talk about what we are

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going for.
So I proposed this and I didn't

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really tell you why, other than
that Bruce Feiler said it's the

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most important thing.
I think that it comes down to

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two things.
For me.

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It comes down to giving our
children a voice, because I know

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that you and I have very strong
voices and setting aside a time

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that we can grow into as a
family.

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So it's going to be short right
now and hopefully it will never

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be too long, but when things do
come up, I want to make sure

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that we already have that time
set aside.

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This is same thing in business,
right?

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It's like if you want to build
connection with a Co worker or a

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relationship in your industry,
what do you do?

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You set a reoccurring time to
talk because then you know that

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that is there.
And if it's a relationship worth

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fostering, you will absolutely
have things to talk about.

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Yeah.
No, I love it.

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So how do we make this
actionable?

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Great question, my favorite
question.

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So the ethos here is minimum
viable product and

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developmentally appropriate
execution.

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So for us, we have kids that are
7, five and three.

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I was just thinking about my
age, I'm almost 39.

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That's great.
And so our minimum viable

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product is really minimum viable
product.

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So shall we go through our
agenda?

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Because you and I, we spent a
little bit of time brainstorming

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about how this agenda can roll.
And the first thing that we

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decided was to we're going to
try a drum roll, which is what

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would you call it, Craig, a
building upon drum roll where

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we'll see if it gets any
traction.

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But basically a call to order,
some kind of call to order.

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That's fun and moved your body.
Yeah.

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And then the next part you this
was your suggestion.

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Yeah, so compliments and
appreciation.

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So I think the idea of
compliments and appreciation is

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starting the meeting in a space
of gratitude, right?

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Gratitude is the ideal soil.
This comes directly from

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Positive Parenting Solutions by
Amy McCready.

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She suggests everyone goes
around and gives a compliment or

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appreciation to every member of
the family.

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That sounds great in theory.
I don't see us being able to

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execute that.
So I would like to suggest that

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again, minimum viable product,
let's not give compliments to

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each person.
Let's just say one nice thing.

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So that's what we're going to
try and then we get into the

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immediately agenda.
So as Greg mentioned on Monday,

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I posted a piece of paper in the
kitchen that says family meeting

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topics.
And I did remember to add 1 tip

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from the literature that
suggested that if you're going

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to bring a problem, you need to
bring at least one to two

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solutions as well.
But as I am a person who

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consistently finds faults and
flaws in things, in myself and

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in others, in an effort to
improve, I immediately started

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writing down things that our
family could do better.

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So there are quite a few in that
list.

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Which is going to set the
culture of the meeting if we.

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Go there.
Yeah, want, want.

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But at least I know that about
myself.

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Step one.
But then you had a great reframe

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as you usually do.
Well, I thought that I I was

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trying to go advanced mode by
saying let's.

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As you usually do.
Let's go through one of our

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family values and either tell a
story about it or talk about it

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or explain how you know somebody
lived up to those values or how

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we want anyway.
I think we can dumb it down a

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little bit and just make it more
fun and it can be something that

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we all want to learn about.
Yeah, so that was my idea.

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So as usual, you in advanced
mode, but at least in a positive

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direction, which I so
appreciate.

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And so I think you know where we
came to the light bulb here for

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the meat of the agenda is that
in addition to things that come

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up like arguments or trouble
getting started, invariably

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everyone in our family has
something they want to learn

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about this week.
And so making sure that we write

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those down too.
So already this week that's come

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up is like, why do grizzly bears
eat salmon in the river?

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And can we learn more about
that?

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Why in certain parts of the
earth is it daylight most of the

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day in the summer and they have
the darkest, darkest winters.

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So the kids love an excuse to
turn on a quick YouTube video

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and then I, you know, I love an
excuse to talk about them

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afterwards.
So really writing those down as

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they come up during the week and
then voting on one of those,

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that's the part of the meeting
I'm most excited about and we'll

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see how it goes.
I love that.

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So drum roll compliments and
appreciation and then one

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learning.
One learning.

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One family learning.
One family learning vote.

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On that from the list.
Vote on that from the list.

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Awesome.
And then one problem to solve 1.

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Problem to solve.
As a team, this is, you know, I

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could tell you from the
literature it says use this as

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an opportunity to skill build as
far as communication and

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negotiation.
I think the important thing is

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that everyone is involved in
talking about the problem and

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coming up with the solution and
and building agreement around

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that.
So that's what we will try.

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I actually don't see an issue
with the problem solving in the

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solution.
I see more the biggest issue

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with these kids is going to be
on the voting right, because if

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somebody doesn't get what they
want.

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How should voting work?
Exactly, but I think that we

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could probably do the voting
ahead of.

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Absolutely.
Where we're saying, OK, this is

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what we're doing, as opposed to
vote on a couple of topics in

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real time which will create like
a minor calamity if not

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something bigger.
Great point.

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So if we're planning on having
our meeting on Sunday morning,

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maybe on Saturday we should vote
on the topics because we usually

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have a bit of time at second
breakfast on Saturdays and

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Sunday mornings.
So maybe that's what we'll plan

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to do.
That sounds good.

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OK, deal.
Yeah, we'll do it during

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daylight hours.
Absolutely, I'll write it down.

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Awesome.
And then you said that we were

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going to follow up the problem
solve with some fun stuff,

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right?
So yeah, I think a snack is

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usually great and 1 tip I heard
is to have the youngest member

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of the family serve, snack, very
cute, nice, and then end with

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some type of dopamine boast.
So hopefully maybe it's a snack

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and a game, a snack and a story,
a snack and a dance party,

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something like that.
But just ending on a high note

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that brings everybody together.
That sounds great.

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And so we'll start Sunday at
around 9:00 AM Yeah, OK.

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And we'll post our agenda and
anything that we modify to that

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in the.
For sure, come and let you know

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how it goes.
OK, so we have boiled down and

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distilled family meetings into
something that we can try and

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something that I think everyone
can try.

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But the key here is to be
consistent, have fun.

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And what was the third thing?
Keep it short.

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Keep it short, all right?
Any reason in particular why

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family meetings are so impactful
and might be the most important

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thing?
I think it goes back to this

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family as a team vibe.
And I'm thinking about a quote

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that I recently heard from
Esther Wojcicki around not

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telling the kids what to do all
the time, giving them an

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opportunity to come up with
their own ideas.

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And I think that it's very
important as we enter this kid

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phase to make space for the
whole family to have a voice and

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have fun together.
I love it.

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Thanks.
One thing that's really

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important to me is to foster
connection between every member

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of our family and it.
I mean, it's certainly when we

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talk about family being the most
important thing absolutely in

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our day-to-day.
But really, when we're gone, I

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want our kids to be able to have
strong bonds and core memories

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of us operating as a team.
Yeah, now that's the real deep

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stuff.
That's why we're in it, to win

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it.
That's why we're being

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intentional about it.
That's why we're doing this

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right, because if we dedicate
time and space and you and me,

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if we have a broader purpose to
to do these things, we will do

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them well.
Yep.

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I think we've really got a good
start, Greg.

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I think we've really got a good
start, but we can always do

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better.
And attention energizes, but

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intention transforms.
So that's why I'm showing up

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today.
Love it, love you.

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I love you, love you, Cusi.
Love you Cusi.