I find it annoying to play referee. Here’s how I keep my time breaking up fights and enforcing the rules to a minimum.

When the kids are home from school—unless they are at camp all day—they have a lot more opportunities to misbehave in my care. This means that I’m spending more time as a mediator, and, frankly, as a disciplinarian. It isn’t my favorite thing to do, but it goes more smoothly when I have a plan.

Watch this video, above, for tips for dealing with misbehavior. You might also want to read this post, or listen to this podcast.

More calm and less chaos in just 20 minutes a week

Every year I rethink our family meetings at the beginning of the summer, when all of our routines are changing anyway, and this June has been no different—except that I recently read Bruce Feiler’s The Secrets of Happy Families, which puts a big emphasis on family meetings.

Fieler, a columnist for the New York Times, took the concept of “Agile teams” from the high-tech business world and applied them to his family. He explains:

Agile is a system of group dynamics in which teams do things in small chunks of time, adjust constantly, and review their progress frequently. Ideas don’t just flow down from the top but percolate up from the bottom. The best ideas win, no matter where they come from.

When applied to family meetings, the concept of an “agile system” really empowers kids, giving them a very tangible role in their family (as you’ll see from the video above, I think giving kids’ a voice in their upbringing is the #1 reason to have family meetings).

Fieler advocates asking three “agile” questions at each family meeting:

1. What went well in our family this week?
2. What didn’t go well?
3. What will we agree to work on in the week ahead?

I love these questions so much I’ve just revised our family meeting agenda to reflect them. The idea, according to Fieler, is that in answering those three questions, kids start to evaluate their own progress. He also recommends that kids suggest their own rewards and punishments for the things they’ll be working on in the week ahead. Although I’m not a huge fan of motivating kids with external rewards, I can see how this might work really well in terms of letting kids regulate their own privileges (like their screen time) based on whether or not they’ve met their own goals.

To include those three questions, I needed to shorten up our existing agenda a lot (there was too much on it, anyway). I moved our calendar review to Sunday night, and added the “plan family fun” part of the meeting to the end of the calendar review, which will give me time to plan for the weekend (and increase the odds that we’ll actually do what the kids suggest). I am also going to start making the “appreciations” opener optional—a time to recognize things we appreciate in others briefly. The way we are doing it now can take up the entire meeting time, because every family member says something they appreciate about every other family member.

If you are new to family meetings, get started by watching the video above. This written post is also a good resource, as is this podcast.

Have fun and let me know how it goes!

Ah, siblings. My kids, 22 months apart, are good friends more often than not. But if history repeats itself I know that this summer break is likely to test their love, to put it mildly. Most siblings do fight; social scientists have consistently recorded high levels of hostility in sibling relationships relative to other relationships. But I want my kids to be kind to each other, especially if they are spending most of their time together!

Fortunately, there are things we can do to make that happen. This quick video shares a few ways to increase the odds our kids get along well.

In this new video from Kids in the House, I discuss why you should worry about your own happiness first.

Want to learn more about how to be happier? Check out my newly relaunched online class: Love Your Life!

Register now, and take the class at your leisure — but be sure to RSVP for a free video coaching call with me on June 19 (space is limited).

In this new video from Kids in the House, I discuss ways to encourage children to practice gratitude.

Gratitude is one of the 5 high-impact habits I encourage you to start now. Learn how to jumpstart a gratitude practice and the four other habits you should incorporate in your life with my newly relaunched online class: Happiness on Autopilot!

Register now, and take the class at your leisure — but be sure to RSVP for a free video coaching call with me on May 24 (space is limited).

Loving-kindness meditation does far more than produce momentary good feelings.

Research convincingly shows that it actually puts people on “trajectories of growth,” leaving them better able to ward off depression and “become ever more satisfied with life.” This is probably because it increases a wide range of those resources that make for a meaningful and successful life, like having an increased sense of purpose, stronger social support, and less illness. Research even shows that loving-kindness meditation “changes the way people approach life” for the better.

Moreover, doing a simple loving-kindness meditation can make us feel less isolated and more connected to those around us: one study showed that a SINGLE SEVEN MINUTE loving-kindness meditation made people feel more connected to and positive about both loved ones and total strangers, and more accepting of themselves. Imagine what a regular practice could do! For more information about loving-kindness meditation, check out this post on my Greater Good blog.

Have you decided to consciously practice being more grateful—only to find that your spouse, or tweener, or someone close to you thinks it’s hoaky and won’t join you?

Watch this video from the Greater Good series to learn what to do when someone is raining on your gratitude parade.

In this brand new video from Kids in the House, I give you some tips for getting kids to do boring but necessary tasks.

Check out my Boosting Emotional Intelligence and Self-Motivation online class for much more on this subject. Register now, and take the class at your leisure–but be sure to RSVP for a free video coaching call with me on April 30 (space is limited).