By Amanda Stokes
W
ith a new school year upon us, it’s that time where parents find themselves faced with life returning to its busy normal.
Here are some powerful, easy to implement ideas to start the new school year on the same page as a family. Create a Family Essential Agreement
At the start of every school year, your children probably participate in creating an essential agreement; an agreement arrived at and agreed upon by all the members of the learning community. It’s a way of deciding communally what the requirements are for a class to run effectively, and to ensure that everyone has input into making the classroom a place where they all feel safe and included. I believe that families need an essential agreement too.
Your family most likely already has one, even if it hasn’t actually been written down. Your agreement includes the things you allow and the things you don’t, the standards of behaviour you accept and don’t accept, and your expectations. The start of the year is the perfect time to create your family’s agreement, one that is negotiated, discussed, and agreed upon by all, and displayed in a shared area as a reminder for all to see. Choose a night where you know you will all come together as a family, with no distractions or demands on your time, and come up with your family’s essential agreement. Everyone in the family should contribute; everyone has a voice, and everything is up for discussion. Once you’ve come up with your top five or six things, have everyone sign off on it and then display it in a common area where it can be referred back to readily.
Some questions to help you come up with your family’s essential agreement:
What does a happy home look like?
How can we help each other feel good about ourselves?
48 Peninsula Kids – Autumn 2021
How can we maintain a happy family environment?
What behaviours support a positive home?
What can we do to make each other feel heard?
How can we become more responsible for our actions?
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