Thursday, January 31, 2013

Top ways to reduce arguments at home

By George E Lawrence


Families come in many different sizes. Some families are made up of only two or three people, while others may have many more. One of the hardest things about being a part of a family is occupying the same home and learning to communicate and get along with each other. Whether your family is only you and your significant other, or includes children or other family members who are living in your home, it is very important to establish an effective way to communicate with each other. Your home will be much more peaceful if everyone knows there is a planned time when they will be allowed to share their frustrations.

Many people view the idea of a family meeting as cheesy, but they can truly help improve the relationships in your household. To avoid some of the traps many people fall into that cause these types of gatherings to fail you should always follow these recommendations for a good family talk. Do not leave anyone out of the meeting and make sure everyone gets a chance to share. Keep negativity at a minimum and try to always share positive things that have happened as well. Before your first meeting, have a set of rules to help govern the meetings as they evolve.

Top 3 tips to improve your family meetings

Involving each and every person in your family meetings is very important. Even your youngest child may surprise you if you give them a chance to share their ideas. Children who feel involved in their family's decisions will often behave in a much more calm and logical way because they feel like their opinions were heard. Having everyone present at a family meeting will also help to solve any miscommunications that may have caused conflicts.

Try to keep your family meetings from become a time when everyone in your family just tells each other what they do not like about them. Anyone who has a concern should be free to share, however, encourage people to talk about positive things that happened during the week and keep all criticisms phrased in a constructive way. One good way to do this is to require anyone sharing a concern to also offer a possible solution for the problem instead of just whining about something they do not like.

Any kind of meeting needs a basic structure if it is going to be productive. Family meetings are no exception. Think ahead of time about how long you think a family meeting should be, how much time you want to allow each person to share their thoughts, and also how frequently you are going to meet. All of these things are important to decide beforehand so that you can keep the meeting focused. If you have no structure in mind before you begin, it could turn into several hours of one person talking and the result could be that no one ever wants to attend another family meeting as long as they live.




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