The How’s It Going Blues
My Grandmother was a wise woman who had a multitude of platitudes she sprinkled throughout our childhood. One favorite was “well the left-hand certainly didn’t know what the right-hand was doing” and it seems particularly apt these days. Communication and negotiation are two fundamental life skills that can be learned with practice. For families with challenges in audio-processing, non-verbal communication, anxiety and transition issues practicing communication skills can help reduce frustration, anger, anxiety, sadness and stress.
Schedule times for regular family meetings, make this a time to check-in with each other, possibly including extended family or friends when appropriate. Use this time to problem solve, head-off resentments and fine tune what works, what doesn’t and why it doesn’t. Be specific as in “emptying the dishwasher while I’m on the phone is noisy and distracting”. Start by reminding everyone this isn’t about blame or complaining. Then keeping an open mind to start exploring solutions to the problem.
Pro Tip: This goes for the adults in your household as well as the kids!
Suggestions for family meeting topics:
2-3 things that are going well, things to be grateful for, affirmations to be shared
Opportunity to share praise and appreciation for one another
Things that could be working better or need to change
Virus time. Limit talk about the virus to a defined amount of time during the family meeting
Everyone gets a turn without being interrupted
Use a talking stick, wand, stuffie, special rock, flower to denote the speaker’s turn
Talk about school, teachers, therapists and friends to keep those connections alive and real
Foster ideas about ways to connect to the people in your lives i.e.: snail mail, online, phone calls, online video meetings
Repeat, reframe a speaker’s position to insure they felt heard and understood
Honor everyone’s point of view, no teasing allowed unless everyone’s in on the joke
Make this a safe environment for everyone to speak up
No crossing another’s physical boundaries, immediate consequences for this
Help children to recognize and name the emotions associated with their behaviors because they don’t always understand those connections i.e.: You were frustrated and that made you angry, so you hit him..
Not all conflicts are going to be headed off or addressed in the family meeting. There will always be those heated moments when somebody looked at somebody else, said something mean or took the last cookie (Dad). When these moments arise send everyone involved to a neutral space, for a specific amount of time, defined by whatever the referee deems the appropriate cool down period. Use a timer, talk to the injured parties separately, reframe each injured party’s claim back to them and then come together to calmly discuss the issue. If things reheat return to the neutral space and reset the timer.
Pro Tip: It’s pk if the referee then has a glass of wine or a cup of tea before trying again.
Keeping the lines of communication open, while always optimal, is essential during stressful times when everyone is in such close quarters. Learning how to identify and articulate our feelings, honor each other, negotiate for our needs and solve problems together are powerful tools to take back out into the world. Because the world simply runs smoother when the left-hand knows what the right-hand is doing!
Stay healthy, stay safe!
