Family Councils
We have been taught that families should council together to check in with one another, plan, and become united. “Each family organization should include a family council comprised of all members of the family unit,” Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles says. “Here the basic responsibilities of the family organization can be taught to the children. They can learn how to make decisions and act upon those decisions.” Elder Perry also noted that every family has different needs. Some are students trying to study and raise a family at the same time, some are older and no longer have children at home, some are single parents, and some are individuals living alone. “Each has different needs, and these needs are changing every year,” he said. However, “there is still need to organize time and thought to establish goals for meeting needs.”
I believe it is important to have family councils to help the family be united! I have been married for 2.5 years and do not have children yet. It has been a goal of mine to have more regular family councils with my husband. This past week, I put family councils into effect. I read a chapter from Elder M. Russell Ballard regarding principles of family councils. I pondered what I would like to get out of the council, and some topics I would like to discuss. I thought about which principles I would like to apply to this meeting. Although all the characteristics of the council the brethren typically have weekly in Salt Lake are great and obviously work for them, I though it would be best to make a few adjustments to best fit my family. I decided that it would be nice to have a set time that my husband would have the council, that we would begin with words of love and concern for one another, that I would lead this particular council, and that we would have an orderly discussion that would conclude with a clear plan of action and us feeling united with the decision reached as well as being followed with homemade soup. I feel it is important to follow up with the decision and progress made.
My experience holding a family council went well. My husband and I discussed our desire to set goals physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally. We created a list of things we would like to work towards in each category, followed by how we will achieve the goal. Our council was productive because we tend to talk about our goals, but we don’t often write them down with a correlation plan of action. We discussed how we should focus on an attainable and measurable area that will enhance our day to day lives, which we deiced was working on our home.
We own a cute little home that we love and are proud of, but because of our busy lives we have put off some projects we have been wanting to tackle. We came up with a prioritized list of what area of our home to focus on first. The first three items included organizing our room, bathroom and office. We chose these areas because we spend a lot of time in these areas. Our kitchen, living room and dining areas are totally organized, and how we like it. Throughout this week my husband and I have worked together on organizing the office, bedroom and bathroom. We completed those two rooms! The next items on our list are the guestroom and guestroom closet/storage area. We decided that we will focus on that area of our home during my one-week break from school after this semester. We will then move to the garage, gym, yard, and painting the laundry room cabinets—we designated times that we believe will be a good time to complete those projects.
I learned that we enjoyed the family council and found it to be fun. We covered a lot of material, and I believe it was helpful and productive. We decided that we will implement family councils once a week, likely Monday evenings along with family home evening. We will check in on our goals and discuss the upcoming week and sync up our schedules and goals. I want to try to open with a prayer, to help invite the spirit into our decisions. I think that we will take what we learned from this family council and apply it to our future councils.
Comments
Post a Comment