Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 29, 1994 TAG: 9408300008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DARRYL E. OWENS ORLANDO SENTINEL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Problems with friends, school policies and other assorted concerns combined to make life at the Seminole County private school stressful for the 15-year-old Longwood, Fla., student.
She needed a change. The fact that her mother, Kathy, worked at the school only complicated matters. But she needed to let her parents know. And she did. Katie revealed her anguish during one of the Stear family meetings. She is going to Lake Brantley High School instead.
``We had to weigh a lot of variables, but there was just this basic unhappiness where she was,'' said Kathy, a grade-school teacher.
``She was stepping into the public school with a lot of trepidations, but we talked a lot about what we could do with it. She plugged into summer school so she could get to know people. It's going to be all right.''
Enhanced communication and problem-solving make up the heart of family meetings, experts say, which provide families a forum to express feelings, air concerns or simply spend quality time practicing the old-fashioned art of conversation.
Informality is the earmark of the family meeting, which can range from discussions at the dinner table to structured weekly sessions. No matter how they're fashioned, however, the bottom line is chitchat with a purpose.
``I think they're [family meetings] an invaluable, if not critical skill, especially in today's family, given the constraints of schedules of working parents and their children,'' said Dr. Becky Bailey, a professor of early childhood development and education at the University of Central Florida.
Experts say family meetings offer a regular setting for family members to communicate and listen to the reactions of others.
It's a tool that Bill and Cathy Stephens have used with their children - Meredith, 19; Trina, 17; Jimmy, 14; and Jordan, 8 - to quash problems and to provide their children with a comfortable atmosphere to come to Mom and Dad with their growing pains.
The meetings are a casual sort of thing for the Stephenses. They call them ``family councils.''
``It's more of a little business meeting that we have at the beginning of the week to find out where everybody's going to go,'' said Bill Stephens, Orlando leasing manager for Koger Equity.
``It was very informal. I usually would say `Let's get together for a family council.' Everybody would gather up in the living room. [The kids] would moan and groan. I would just touch base on a few things real quick.''
Actually, anyone could call a meeting. Once past the initial moans and groans, meetings were generally effective.
``Even though they moaned and groaned, when they got down to a particular issue, some good stuff would come out. There would be disagreements, areas of concern, but it was good that we were talking about it,'' he said. Today the family holds meetings on an as-needed basis.
Generally, families use the meetings to discuss topics like vacations, the start of school, or what to do with Grandma when she comes to visit. Family meetings also are an ideal forum for dealing with practical subjects such as planning family routines and chores.
Many of ``these things, people think are common sense,'' said Wendy E. Derrow, a Maitland, Fla., mental health counselor intern. ``But it's more than that. In a nurturing family, this is a tool for interdependence.''
Derrow knows of what she speaks. She and her husband, Martin, a physician, have conducted family meetings with their daughters, Michelle, 19, and Amy, 16, for years.
``We have a democratic family structure, and one piece of that is the family meeting,'' Wendy said.
``Everybody has a voice. It's improved our relationship. It's a forum for communication, where you can feel safe when sharing.''
The Derrows launched the meetings when Michelle was starting elementary school. The sessions would be held on an as-needed basis, but the family usually would plan regular Sunday meetings, when everybody would be home.
What made the sessions work for the Derrows was the fact that as parents, Wendy and Martin took great pains to show respect for their children's ideas, responses and suggestions.
``Children have the right to be respected by their parents,'' Wendy Derrow said. ``We try very hard to take our children seriously and hold them in esteem so that they think their opinions are valuable. If you don't, they feel you're going through the motions. What's the point? Why bother?''
A good time to launch family meetings is when children start elementary school, said Dr. JoAnn Cook, a Winter Park, Fla., psychiatrist.
``For teaching compromise, the beginnings of democratic problem-solving, it's most beneficial with kids in elementary school, as they are beginning to have a sense of give and take,'' she said.
``By the time they reach adolescence, you would like for them to function like that.''
Experts say there's no right or wrong format. Some parents always run the show, others allow the kids to run the meetings occasionally. Some have a formal agenda with topics of discussion, others just ask what's on everybody's mind.
That makes family meetings a tool that stepfamilies should think about using.
Mental health counselor Derrow said, ``We're talking about creating a nurturing family, one in which there is real good communication, and this is a tool for helping doing that.''
Family meetings might be especially useful when it comes to sharing responsibility for discipline, she said, noting that often in stepfamilies, the biological parent assumes that responsibility and the stepparent feels awkward in dishing out discipline.
In any case, the key, experts say, is to make sure the meetings remain skull sessions, not point-the-finger gripe sessions.
``Family meetings are not for blame or making judgments, they're for problem-solving,'' Derrow said.
In the Stear household, that's exactly what happens.
When the children walk into the house after a day at school, ``We just usually drop whatever we're doing and listen,'' said Kathy Stear.
Added Bill Stear, ``The value of it is simply being able to help one another and support one another. There's a lot of challenges for all the family members. Sometimes the children can give good ideas to the parents. There's a lot of wisdom in our teen-agers and even younger.''
Good ideas aside, for parents the underlying value of family meetings may be how they can build a bridge of trust that children often cross to seek advice.
``They are constantly telling us of people either wanting to hit on them for going into drugs or for sex, and they ask counsel,'' Bill said.
``We've given them counsel on how to handle those situations. Without the meetings, there would be no relationship and no reason for them to look to their parents,'' he said. ``Much of the media says, `Your parents don't know what they're doing and you should look to your peers,' but because we've established that relationship they come to us with almost everything.''
Katie agrees. Her friends scratch their heads when she tells them she tells her parents everything. Strange, they say.
Katie agrees. Strange. But in a good way.
``I wasn't sure if I should have relationships with a certain guy, and they gave me good counseling to get to know him first," she said. "I like their advice. I use my own judgment also, but I listen to them. I know a lot of my friends think it's just crazy that I tell my parents everything, but I think it's great.''
by CNB