Sources And Working Definition

Everyday Parenting As Civics

Family Rules And Fairness

Disagreements Without Disrespect

Low‑Lift Democratic Practices At Home

Family Council Meeting Blueprint

What’s Negotiable And What Isn’t

Caitlin 0:33

Hey friends, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to How to Be a Grown Up. This is the show for moms who value the democratic process. So I'm gonna just really quickly to have you take a moment in your head. When you think of democracy, what do you think of? Typically I think of voting booths or big speeches. Absolutely. Those are part of the process. But most of the skills that you need for a healthy democracy are actually practiced early on, like in car lines or family group texts, and even who gets the last chicken nugget. We've talked about not burning out on the news, picking a lane for local action and nonviolent communication. This episode is about where those skills actually all start, which is at home with your kids in those very um, shall we say, non-glamorous parenting moments. So before I get into that, I'd love to make sure you're subscribed to this show. So make sure you hit follow or subscribe, or whatever word your favorite podcast app has to make sure you never miss an episode. Let's go ahead and get to it. So for today's episode, uh, my sources are a few that you've heard of before: an introduction to practicing nonviolence with children. That's that PDF that I have from the Peace Resource Center of San Diego. But there's a couple other ones. Um, let's see, the Center for Nonviolent Communication, again, one we've talked about before. But I loved this one. This is from Connected Families. It's called Family Meetings: The Why and How of a Fun, Successful Family Meeting, and a Democratic Parenting Style article, which I have again all linked in the show notes here. For the purposes of this episode, I don't mean democracy as in what you learned in your eighth-grade civics class, although that is certainly a part of this. What I'm referring to is sharing power and voice, listening and negotiating, and respecting agreed-upon rules. And then when they're not working, changing those rules together. So, as a former humanities teacher, let me make something very clear to you. One, ordinary parenting conflicts are civics lessons. And two, they happen all the time. These opportunities to teach these lessons happen all the time. So here's a few examples, okay? Let's say we're talking about taking turns and sharing chores, screen time, toys, who picks the music in the car. All of these things teach your kids that other people matter too, not just what they want, but other people's opinions matter. And we can't always get our way, but we can expect fairness. You can name that explicitly for your kids. You can say, well, today it's your turn to pick the show that we're going to watch this evening as a family. Tomorrow it's your siblings' turn. Everyone's going to get a turn, even if we don't like their choice. And in my case, I would say if you don't like the choice that they make, you may go find something else to do if you don't want to watch that show. If we're talking about making and revising family rules, things like bedtimes and phone rules and homework routines. All of these rules teach that rules come from people and behaviors, they don't come out of thin air. I didn't just make them for no reason. I always used to tell my students: if you don't like this year's rules, take a look at last year's behavior and see if you can see where that rule came from, right? If you have to impose a new rule on screen time, maybe that's because the previous rule about screen time was being taken advantage of or not followed. It also teaches your kids these revising family rules that we can talk about rules and change them when they're not working, right? And you're going to make it explicit for your kids by saying things like, well, we made a rule that phones stay in the kitchen at night. If that's not working, we can talk about changing it. But until we all agree on something new, we're going to follow this rule that we have in place right now. When it comes to handling disagreements, things like sibling arguments or family disagreements about plans or taste or opinions. All of these teach kids you can disagree and still belong here, be a part of our family. And we can be hard on the issue at hand and stick to our boundaries, but still love and respect the person. Hard on the issue, easy on the person. And you can say out loud for your kids, you and I see this differently, and that's totally okay. What's not okay is the yelling or the name calling. Let's just take a break and try again later. And we've talked about strategies to do that. So feel free to stop this episode here, go back to those nonviolent communication strategies and listen to that one. And then come back. Don't skip this one. Either way, regardless of which one of those situations we're talking about, the takeaway is always going to be the same. These are the same skills that adults need in school board meetings or neighborhood groups and online debates. They just look like, you know, who got the blue Sippy Cup today and who got the red one, right? It's it's a different outcome, but the process is the same. So there are, of course, ways to build in these democracy practices into your family. So I'm just going to offer you a few concrete low-lift practices that model democratic values that you can now point out to your kids. These are like, just for the record, always suggestions. Pick one, pick two, pick them all, pick none. Doesn't matter to me. I just want you to have these. And I don't want you to think of them as an entirely new parenting system. It's just an option for you. So consider one option. Family votes on low stakes stuff. Note I said low stakes, right? We'll get into what parents always get to dictate, of course. But things like, well, we're going to go to the park today. Which park do we go to? Or when you're at the park and there's three hiking trails, which trail are we going to take? Or what should our Friday night movie be? What you're going to do is put out three, four, maybe not, maybe that's too many. Maybe two to three. Two to three options. Everyone gets one vote. The majority wins. And the people who are, I don't want to say the losers, but I mean that's really what they are. The losers get a guaranteed turn next time or some sort of consolation choice. Like they get to choose the snack for after the hike, right? And you're going to say, we're going to vote. And then we all agree to go along with the result, even if it's not our first choice. And that's part of how grown-up decisions happen too. Here you go. There's one option. What about some sort of rotating role, a helper role, or a kid of the day, or teachers do this all the time, right? Like this is my helper student for the week. It's a great one. The roles might be line leader for getting into the car, or the DJ of the day for the playlist that you listen to in the car on the way to the hike that someone in the family chose. Or maybe we have a snack captain. They get to hand out the snacks fairly. So for snack captain, you're going to say, okay, snack captain, your job is to pass things out so that everyone gets the same amount. That's what leaders do. They think about everyone, not just themselves. Polite dissent. Something that I think we all need to work on right now, right? You're going to teach kids how to say no or I disagree without exploding like a volcano. So you're going to role-play with them and model for them. I hear what you're saying and I see it differently because, whatever your answer is, or let them get it all out and then say, I hear you. Can I share my point of view? Make sure you add that I hear you in there. Just validate them a little bit. This is really important because it's exactly what we want them to be able to do later with their friends or their teachers, eventually in civic spaces, right? So we have to practice what we want to get better at. And you have to give kids opportunities to practice those things. I love this option. Think about family council meetings. We hear a lot about family meeting, right? But I think that this is a really important space to really practice these democratic values. Once a week or whenever you need to have family meetings, I would recommend like not once a month. That's probably too infrequent. But I love the once a week, a quick 10-minute family check-in, like a what's going well, what's not working, what's one thing we want to try differently. On that Connected Families website, I saw these rules and I loved them, and I'm going to share them with you here. One rule is everyone gets to be heard in these family council meetings: a timer, a talking stick, a plushie, whatever it is you have to do to make sure that the person who's speaking knows that it's their turn and they're going to take their time to speak, right? That way kids learn the vital role of being a listener and being a speaker, but also staying on topic. Decisions need to be unanimous. This promotes unity. You can tell I did not write that. But the whole goal here is to help kids learn how to compromise, right? It keeps kids from voting for silly things like candy for every meal because parents are going to be like, right? But kids have to understand, like, yeah, okay, yes, we can do that. And it'll be my turn to make some decision next week. I loved this one, especially as kids get older. Attendance is optional, but all decisions apply to all family members, whether you're present or not. That is super important. When you think about voting, there are plenty of people who don't vote, but this decision still applies to them, whether or not they voted. So you might as well make your voice heard. Spontaneous requests during the week go on the next meeting's agenda. Oh boy, do I love that one. This is so cool because it means that you're gonna have to decrease that frequency of saying, uh, no. No, right? Instead, you're gonna say, okay, great, let's put that on next week's agenda. We'll put it on the list for the next meeting we have as a family. Perfect. It's not that you're saying no, it's that you're saying we will discuss it, but not right now. So the answer is, I guess, no for right now, but I'm not ignoring your request. And going back to what I was saying earlier about like what these low-stakes things are that get to be voted upon, it's the parents' job to make clear what is or isn't negotiable. Obviously, safety is a non-negotiable, so we're not gonna be voting on anything that involves safety. Okay. However, other things like certain chores, maybe you have this family rule that anything you want washed in the laundry, any laundry you're gonna support your kids with has to be ready to go by 10 a.m. on their designated laundry day. That means that it's gotta be in their hamper. That's a non-negotiable, right? Or all toys are always picked up before bed at 8 p.m. If you can get your kid into bed at 8 p.m., send me all the your ways, because mine is mine's really pushing that. Anyway, if that's your family rule, that's a non-negotiable. That's not something that's on the table as part of the agenda, the family council meeting discussion for the week. Okay. Just also remember that it's okay for kids to challenge those expectations and try to influence change. That's their goal. That's the role that you want them to play, right? You are holding firm on the things that matter for your family while also empowering your kids to solve problems and meet expectations. Just remember that these meetings sounds like it could go really long with what I just gave you for those rules, right? But kids don't listen. The kids are gonna, they're gonna tune out after a little while. So keep the meeting short. And when you get a kid idea, consider taking one of them seriously and actually try it for the week. Then you're not just saying, yes, everyone has a voice. You're actually showing them that their voice is something that you're going to take seriously. And make sure you name that, again, adults always make final decisions about safety at the end. Let's connect all of these house rules back to civic life. So we're going to say something to our kids like, hey, we're practicing small-scale democracy at home. It's gonna sound weird. I'm like, democracy, what's that? And you can go back to that definition I gave you earlier. We're sharing decisions, we're taking care of each other, we're fixing things when they go wrong. These are all the same muscles that grown-ups are using when we vote or we speak up or we go to meetings. So make the connection between family rules and laws and policies. So something like in our house, we made a rule about shoes staying by the door to keep things safe and clean. In a community, leaders make rules or laws that try to keep people safe and things running smoothly. Right? If the rule is shoes are by the door, because then when it's time to leave, we know where our shoes are that helps things run smoothly. You can make that connection between rules inside your home and outside your home. You can also say something like sometimes rules are unfair or out of date. That's when people speak up and try to change them. The shoe thing might be a negotiable for you. I don't know. But have the kids bring it up and then they can try to change it. Chores are akin to shared responsibilities. In fact, they are shared responsibilities, right? But in a home, everyone helps a little with dishes or trash and laundry so the house doesn't fall apart and it's not on mom to do all the things all the time. That's when mom yells. FYI. In a community, we all pitch in with things like taxes or volunteering and voting so that schools and parks and libraries can all work. Right? I love the line from Leslie No. That's what government does, Ron. It provides services for people. Right? That's what we're doing. Everybody chips in so that the government can provide services in a home. Everybody chips in so that we all don't fall apart and mom doesn't scream at the end, right? Apologies and repair are your connection to that accountability piece, right? In our family, if someone breaks something or hurts someone, we talk about it, we do our best to repair it and we learn from it, right? If we can't repair the thing, then we talk about how to replace the thing. Okay. In a healthy democracy, in a healthy democracy, everybody's shaking their heads right now, when leaders or systems hurt people, we don't just shrug and move on. The people demand investigations or changes, apologies, and we try to repair the harm in a healthy democracy. That's important because you can actually say, what do you see that's happening here, especially with those older kids, right? Who are like, but wait, the government's not supposed to do those things. You can actually say, right. So what does that tell you about the health of a democracy? Okay. Something to think about. I'm working on an episode about how to explain why our government is not quote-unquote working the way it's supposed to be right now. Um, it's coming, but this one's a little complicated and I'm really struggling with it. So um just know that it's coming, but that healthy democracy piece about accountability, that's a big deal. Make sure you stress that point with your kids. I told you guys last week that I wanted to call this democracy in the minivan. And you know that I love a really good sentence frame. So I've got some lines for you that you can use when different situations come up and you want to sort of sprinkle in a little. This is the democratic process. This is democracy in action. So the traffic situation. How many times have you been sitting at a red light and the red light feels like it's an eternity long? You can say something like, right now we're stuck in traffic. Not because, you know, the great spaghetti monster hates you, although it does feel like that when you're stuck in traffic sometimes. Right now we're stuck in traffic because everyone's trying to get somewhere at the same time and we have to follow rules about who goes when. That's part of how we keep people safe when we all share the road. When kids complain about unfair rules, oh my gosh. If you're dealing with that preteen angst, this is definitely part of that, I'm sure, for you. You can say something like, it's totally okay to think a rule is unfair, but what's a respectful way to tell us that and suggest a different idea for that rule? Or in the bigger world, people complain about unfair rules too. They go to meetings, though, they write letters or protest when they think a rule is unfair. This ain't that. Let's come up with a calmer, quieter way, respectful way to tell us that you don't like the rule. We're not gonna stage a protest in my living room. Thank you. When someone loses a vote, whether it's one of those family meeting votes or outside, outside in the bigger world, um, when someone loses a vote or they don't get their way, you know, you can say it's definitely disappointing when your choice doesn't win. A lot of us are nodding along right now. That happens with grown-ups too. Like we all get disappointed when our choice isn't the winner. You're totally allowed to be upset, and yet we still have to follow the decision that was agreed upon. Even if we didn't agree with it, we still have to follow the decision. When you want to highlight listening skills, you can say something like, you don't have to agree with your sibling, but you do need to listen long enough to understand what they're saying. And, you know, kudos to you if you can do that, because that's a skill that a lot of grown-ups on TV don't have. So you're already more mature than grown-ups if you can listen to your siblings' ideas. Wow, can you imagine when your seven-year-old is more mature than some of the grown-ups that we are listening to on television? It's real. So here's my challenge to you. I'd love for you to pick one of those democratic family actions I outlined. Maybe you try one family vote this week on something that's low stakes, or you add one rotating role to your family life. Maybe that's DJ for the day, or I love the snack captain. And I hope the snack captain in your family considers me I love when chocolate is covered in salt. So give me some trail mix. Thanks. Um, or maybe you do one 10-minute family council meeting and you write down one kid idea that you are actually willing to try. I'm not asking you to completely change your style of parenting. There are plenty of families who don't believe in democratic parenting, and that's totally okay. Listening to your kids is important, and modeling those democratic practices is important. So I'm not saying that you need to turn your living room into a model UN. That's not necessary. But if your kids learn that their voice matters and that other people's voices matter, and that we can disagree with each other without destroying each other in the process, you're all Already practicing democracy in your minivan or your SUV with three rows of seats or your living room doesn't matter. You're doing it. And good job. And keep it up. Next week, I am going to dive into digital citizenship. So taking all of these things we've learned and using them online. Make sure you subscribe now so that you don't miss it. Hope to hear from you. Send me a text if there's something you want to say. You can find the link to that in the show notes and connect with me online. I'm on threads most of the time, CK and GK podcast. Love you mean it. Make good choices. Bye.