Family meetings are casual sessions where you and your family sit down face-to-face, without distractions, to discuss matters that are important to you. They can be used for any number of reasons but I’ve found them to be an especially wonderful tool for assessing your homeschool life. I like to hold them a minimum of three times each year: before we begin a new homeschool year, toward the middle of our homeschool year, and as we are ending our current homeschool year.
Since our family tends to homeschool year-round, I’m using the words begin, middle and end loosely as we don’t have specific start dates or end dates for our year. But I do feel like our years have distinct moments where things that we’ve been doing (say our yearly math or history studies) naturally reach their end point and we begin transitioning into new areas and next levels.
You can also hold a family meeting whenever the mood suits you or your children, or anytime an issue arises that needs a family perspective to address.
And when that need arises for our family, we open up a tasty treat to share, pour a few glasses of your kids’ favorite drinks, set up plates, utensils and napkins at the table. I grab a notebook and a pen and then call the kids to gather ‘round!
Here are some details that can help you also use this useful family tool.
How can family meetings help your homeschool?
Holding family meetings for your homeschool can give you valuable feedback throughout the year about how your choices surrounding home education are working for your family. This gives you an opportunity to pause, reflect, and revisit problem areas as needed. It also allows the opportunity to step back and appreciate all of the good that has come along the way.
Most importantly, discussing your homeschool via family meetings sets the tone for a collaborative home life, allowing your children a welcoming, neutral space to speak their minds and to make suggestions about how they want to learn. This helps promote feelings of ownership of the learning journey as opposed to homeschool being something that is simply planned and executed for them, whether they like it or not.
Family meetings send a clear message to your child, “this is a shared journey and we are all learning and working together.”
What items should we discuss?
You know your children best. So, I’d suggest starting off with whatever question you think your children will feel comfortable answering and then dig in deeper little by little. What’s most important is that every child gets a say, from the oldest to the youngest, even if they’re an 18-month-old toddler who can only say “okay.” Including babies in the family meeting is actually a good way to help keep the mood light as baby babble answers usually result in uproars of laughter from everyone at the table.
In our house, discussion items usually include:
- What have we done lately that you loved?
- What isn’t working well and why?
- What are you struggling with (if anything)?
- What are you getting better at?
- What has become so easy for you that it’s a total bore?
- How is our rhythm/routine working out? Are there any items you think would work better if we switched them around?
- How did you feel about the topics we studied or the books we used?
- Which topics or books would you like to drop?
- Which topics or books do you want to keep going with or level up in?
- What sorts of activities and experiences would you like to do more of?
- What areas would you like more control over?
- If I give you more control in these areas, how do you plan to be more responsible with managing them?
- What goals are you currently working on and how is your progress coming along?
- Is there anything you need more of my help with?
Don’t feel pressured to cover all of this in one meeting. Different ages and stages will have different capacities to participate in family meetings. Remove what doesn’t apply and add whatever is important for your unique family.
Making a habit of getting your child’s feedback about what they are learning, even without a formal family meeting, can go a long way to building the kind of homeschool life that serves your family's needs.
How can we make the most of family meetings?
If you want your children to trust the family meeting process, try to avoid approaching it with a mission and checklist. The aim is to create a welcoming space, to TALK and be open with one another. Strike up a conversation and see where it goes, throw in a joke or two to keep the mood light, let things wander off topic for a bit, and then gently bring it back.
If an area is identified by your children as not working, even when it’s an area you feel you put your heart and soul into preparing for them, try not to take it personally. Look at it, instead, as an invitation to figure out what works better for your family.
Follow up and ask them how they think it can be improved. What specifically didn’t work and what do they feel would work better for them? Share your thoughts and concerns in return. Invite them to explore new options with you. Really listen to what your children have to say.
Let them know, wholeheartedly, that this is a shared journey and we are all learning and working together.
Melissa Barreto is a homeschooling mother of five children and the Co-Founder of Wildflower Homeschool Collective, a homeschool organization based in Northern New Jersey.
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