The Un-Perfect Family Council: Collaborative Discipleship at Home

The toddler spilled her juice across the kitchen table right as I was trying to explain the new chore chart and the middle schooler groaned like I had asked him to reorganize the garage and the teenager looked at me with an expression that said you cannot be serious. The juice ran toward the edge of the table and dripped onto the floor while I stood there holding a dry erase marker and a laminated chart that was supposed to change everything and I realized that this was not going to be the family council I had planned.

It took me three more tries over the next several months to stop trying to run a meeting and start learning how to have a conversation. I used to think a family council needed an agenda and a time limit and a clear outcome like the classroom meetings I ran as a teacher. But a family is not a classroom and children are not students you dismiss at three o'clock and the Spirit does not follow a printed schedule.

How to Hold a Family Council with Young Children

I have learned that the word council sounds more formal than it needs to be. When I imagined a family council I pictured everyone sitting quietly around the table with their hands folded taking turns speaking while I facilitated the discussion like a well trained moderator. The reality was a toddler under the table and a middle schooler staring at the ceiling and a teenager who said one word answers to every question I asked.

So I stopped trying to make it look like a meeting and started letting it look like what it was. Sometimes our family council is a conversation in the car on the way to school or five minutes before dinner when I ask everyone to share one thing they need help with this week. Other times the toddler wanders in and out of the room and the teenager rolls her eyes and the middle schooler asks if we are done yet. I have decided that all of that counts anyway.

Here is what I have been sitting with this week. A council is not about the format. It is about the intention. If the intention is to invite the Lord into our family decisions and make space for everyone to be heard then the Spirit can work even when the toddler is drawing on the agenda with a purple crayon.

Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. - Matthew 18:20

Making Family Councils Less Stressful and More Spiritual

The pressure I put on myself to create a spiritual experience was actually keeping the Spirit away. I was so focused on managing the meeting that I forgot to invite the Lord into it. I would start with a prayer but my heart was still on the chore chart and the schedule and the list of things that needed to get done this week.

Before we begin I take a breath and remind myself what this is actually for. It does not need to be about assigning tasks. It is about learning to counsel together the way the Lord counsels with us quietly and patiently and without rushing. The article on The Quiet Grace of Low-Pressure Family Prayer helped me see that the same is true for family councils. They are not about running an efficient meeting. They are about creating unity.

I started each council with a check in on how everyone was feeling before we talked about anything practical. The teenager I asked what she was worried about this week instead of whether she had finished her project. The middle schooler I asked what he was excited about instead of reminding him to clean his room. And the toddler I asked what she wanted to tell us which was usually something about horses or the color pink. The practical conversations still happened but they happened after we had already connected as people.

LDS Family Council Ideas for Teenagers

The teenager is the hardest one to reach during a family council because she has heard every version of every lesson I have ever given and she knows all my tricks. She can spot a teaching moment from a mile away and she will shut down before I finish my first sentence if she thinks I am trying to manage her.

I started asking her opinion on real things. Not hypothetical questions about what she would do in a situation from a church manual but actual decisions our family was facing. Where should we go for the family trip this summer. What dinner should we have for Sunday. How should we handle the screen time rules that were clearly not working. When I gave her a real voice in real decisions something shifted. She still rolled her eyes sometimes but she also started offering real answers.

The post on The Quiet Transition: From Directive to Supportive Parenting for LDS Teens helped me understand that my teenagers need me to shift from telling to inviting. A family council is one of the best places to practice that shift because it gives them a space where their words carry weight.

How to Handle Conflict During LDS Family Councils

Not every council goes well. Some of them end with someone storming off or the toddler crying because she did not get a turn to talk or the teenager saying something sharp that hangs in the air long after everyone has left the table. I used to think those councils were failures. Now I think they are part of the process.

Conflict is not a sign that the council is broken. It is a sign that people care enough to show up. The question is what you do with the conflict when it arrives. I have learned to pause when the tension rises and say something simple like let us take a breath or let us come back to this later. The Savior did not push through conflict. He sat with it and asked questions and let people arrive at their own conclusions. I am trying to do the same.

Frequently Asked Questions

My kids will not sit still for a family council. Does that mean it is not working?

The honest answer is no because the goal is connection, not stillness. Try a walking council or a short conversation during a meal. If the Spirit is present and the children feel heard, the council is doing exactly what it is supposed to do regardless of how many times someone gets up from their chair.

How do we keep family councils from becoming a list of chores and complaints?

Start the conversation with gratitude before you talk about what needs to be done. Take a moment to say something you appreciate about each person in the room. That changes the atmosphere completely. When people feel seen and valued first, they are more willing to talk about hard things later.

How often should we have family councils?

There is no fixed rule about how often to hold a family council. Some families do well with a weekly rhythm and others prefer a monthly check in or as needed conversations. The right frequency is the one that feels supportive instead of heavy. If the council becomes something everyone dreads you are doing it too often or doing it wrong.

I do not run family councils the way I used to imagine I would. They are messy and unpredictable and sometimes the only thing we accomplish is a five minute conversation in the car about what everyone needs this week. But I am learning that the mess is part of it. The toddler under the table and the teenager with her eyes on the ceiling and the middle schooler asking if we are done yet they are all part of the same holy work. Learning to counsel together takes practice and most of that practice happens in the imperfect moments between the juice spills and the eye rolls and the one honest sentence someone says when you least expect it.

with love, Melissa