When Kids Decide – How Kids’ Councils can Improve Your Parenting

Source: www.timcoulson.com

Parents often find themselves acting in the role of policeman, prosecutor, judge, and jury. Children have conflicts, continually make requests, and seem to have endless issues that we think require our involvement.

And as parents, we feel as though it is our duty – a significant and weighty responsibility – to step in and solve problems, give answers, make decisions, and be involved in every situation. Most parents grow to resent the endless occurrences where their input is ‘needed’.

But do our children really need us to be involved with every facet of their lives?

In our home, we have instituted what we call ‘Kids’ Councils’.

Here’s how it works: When there is a problem, a minor conflict, or a decision to be made, we talk about it briefly as a family (so we, as parents, can give some simple and basic guidance). Then we send the kids off to a room, or a quiet outside area, and ask them to counsel with each other, negotiate, and come to an agreement on the best course of action.

You’d be surprised how well it works.

Here’s an example from our most recent one:

Our family has adopted a theme for 2012 that ‘we can do hard things’. We’re memorising quotes about doing hard things (such as Roosevelt’s ‘Man in the Arena’ quote), sharing stories of persistence and courage in the face of adversity (Spencer Johnson’s values tales are excellent resources for this), and setting goals to do hard things together as a family.

After a family conversation about different hard things we could do this year, we felt a need to reduce our list of 10-12 things down to around three or four. We asked the children to decide which ones they felt would be the best ‘hard things’ to do this year. And off they went.

Twenty minutes later, they were back. Decisions were made, ideas were modified, and we had our goals set.

Why does it work?

The children have to listen to each other, work together, negotiate, and think through their decisions. Once those decisions are made, they feel committed to the outcome. They want to see it succeed because it’s their idea.

Kids also have a strong sense of justice and fairness. So Kids’ Councils can also work where someone has done something ‘wrong’ and decisions need to be made about what an appropriate response might be.

For example, when someone steals something from a sibling, we ask the kids to all get together and discuss the issue, what they’ve learned, and what should happen as a result. The person who stole will explain why they did what they did, and they’ll each evaluate the situation. Often the person who did the stealing will suggest a solution that is better than anything we, as parents, may have thought of. They may apologise, and the children will let the matter go. Or they may decide that they’ll help the offended sibling to tidy their room for a few days to demonstrate their remorse.

Kids’ Councils take a little while to get organised. The children will require some coaching. And they tend to work best once children are over the age of eight (or thereabouts), although younger children can join in. But once you’ve got it going, you’ll be amazed at how effectively your children can work through the many challenges that used to be all your responsibility.

Note – sometimes the older children may feel that they can manipulate the younger children into agreeing with them. We resolve this by asking each child, individually, if they are happy about the result, or if they want things to be different. If the younger children indicate that they’d prefer a substantially different outcome, the council resumes, and we try again.