A Family Meeting Handbook

Book excerpt: Based on the personal experience of a family counselor and parent, this handbook for parents describes the technique of "Family Meetings," a way of bettering family relationships, solving problems, and nurturing opportunities for children to learn fairness, respect, and self-esteem. The key principle of such family meetings is that family decisions are made by everyone's agreement. A key outcome is the reduction in the number of times parents have to say "no" to their children. Contents of the handbook provide guidelines for holding family meetings, discuss family meetings in different types of families, relate anecdotes about family problems and the use of family meetings to resolve the problems, discuss the use of the family meeting notebook, and offer hints and suggestions about the range and type of issues parents would like to and/or be obliged to deal with in the meetings. Also included in the handbook are games and activities for use in family meetings and a 17-page annotated bibliography citing related resources. (RH)