Dropping an egg on the ground was once a bigger problem than a mess to clean up, says Rob Guttenberg. In the days when more families grew up in farming households, if a child dropped an egg during daily chores, somebody in the family didn’t eat. Children could easily see the importance of doing their daily chores.
With most children now growing up in urban and suburban environments, children no longer see the direct impact they have on family and peers. Too often, children feel like they don’t make a difference, said Guttenberg, a family counselor with the Bethesda-Chevy Chase YMCA.
For more than two decades, Guttenberg has advocated the practice of the Family Council to help children feel like they are valued family members.
The Family Council was the idea of psychologist Alfred Adler and one of his protégés, Rudolph Dreikurs.
Guttenberg advocates a family council as a place “where everybody in the family had an opportunity to feel like they were listened to.”
While some of the specifics will vary from one family to the next, a family council meeting is one held on a regular basis, where all members of the family meet to discuss issues of conflict or make decisions together.
“The man is no longer the unquestioned authority of the family,” Guttenberg continued. “No one’s opinions take a front seat at the family council.”
Family members take turns as chair of the council, each member receives an equal vote, and decisions must be made by a group consensus instead of a majority. When any family member “has the floor,” others must listen to them without interrupting.
AS A TEENAGER, Tasnima Apol (formerly Tasnima Kornrich) and her family, then Takoma Park residents, held regular family council meetings under Guttenberg’s guidance. The Kornriches were featured in Washington Post article and a 700 Club segment titled “No More Civil Wars.”
The family began holding family councils because Apol’s mother, Ekbal Kornrich, felt there was too much friction between the Tasnima and her parents.
After beginning regular family council meetings, the Kornriches continued the practice through Tasnima’s teen years. Issues ranged from chores to family trips to pets to general complaints.
“It didn’t make all family strife stop immediately,” said Apol, but it built a more trusting and respectful relationship between Apol, her brother Sabina and their parents. “I don’t fear my parents, and I don’t want my kids to fear me,” Apol said.
TWENTY years after her family began the practice, Apol spoke about the experience in the Davis Library in Bethesda last month. She is now 30 years old and lives with her husband Kevin Apol in Laurel.
Kevin Apol said he had talked about the Kornrich’s family council meetings with Tasnima. Without children at the moment, the Apols do not hold any type of family council meeting, but they don’t rule it out for the future.
“My family didn’t have a family council, but I always felt respected,” Kevin Apol said. “There are different ways to go about achieving the same end result.”
Tasnima Apol, however, believes the family council meetings of her teenage years had a lasting impact. Now a law student, she feels the meetings made her a better public speaker and communicator. “It made me very unafraid to voice my opinion,” she said. “Perhaps I do it too much.”
DONNA STYLES, a teacher and author from British Columbia, Canada, believes a similar practice in classrooms can help students feel more valued among their peers.
In class meetings, students begin by going around a circle giving compliments to one another. “Children learn that compliments are not clothing, or things they own, but about character,” Guttenberg said.
Another facet of class meetings is the “cooperative playground,” where students rewrite rules to traditional games like tag that may be exclusionary or alienating to some students.
Styles comes to Montgomery County next week, and will lead a workshop for 120 teachers. She will also give a lecture for parents at Suburban Hospital on Friday, April 23 (see “Power of Parenting,” above).
Guttenberg’s hope is for families and schools alike to provide environments where children feel a sense of connection and believe their opinions are valued.
“Sometimes, the most basic thing in life it to feel like we’ve been understood,” Guttenberg said.