A portion of my work as a counselor is doing some form of intervention in family systems. The continuum from parents needing just a few strategies to the extreme of working with families to get into therapy makes individualization for each family very important. But there are some givens that parenting experts agree upon that work for all families, whether it be in setting up routines, opening up communication, disengaging from technology, etc.

As a counselor, I know that offering strategies while guiding parents to read parenting books and websites is only the first step in supporting students and their family systems. Following up after parent meetings is essential to check in and continue the dialogue. It is also essential to provide and coach parents in using structures to help improve family dynamics and from a wellness angle to help families thrive.

One of the main structures that I offer families is to have regular family meetings and work together to put plans together. I wrote about this in the spring with the post An Opportunity for Making Plans!. I outlined steps to follow to construct family wellness, tech & media (digital wellness) use, and mission statements. And, of course, individual family members can create their own personal versions of the plans.

I tried to build practical action steps for the plans to make them tangible and a part of family cultures. One additional strategy is to have families design wellness progress reports to support each plan’s implementation and ongoing follow-through. Schools use the term progress report to mean different things. Still, in this instance, I offered it as a formative assessment to support reflection, communication, learning, and other goal-setting while celebrating progress.

When you add the character strength of proactivity by making family meeting appointments in the family calendar, families have a real opportunity to further live their mission, wellness, and digital wellness plans.

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