Family meetings are a wonderful way to effectively communicate with everyone in your household. Is there a reoccuring theme where you feel like you're saying the same thing over and over again and the other person just doesn't follow through ? Or do you feel like your comments and requests are not heard? Try setting family meetings to calmly discuss family topics and make sure that everyone is on the same page. To start this process, consider the following steps:

Step 1: Set a day and time when everyone is available to meet

Step 2: Create an agenda (and let family know they can add to it!)

Step 3: Starting the meeting: Especially important for the first couple of family meetings, set ground rules everyone agrees on (i.e. using a calm voice, respectful words, and asking questions). Review the predetermined agenda.

Step 4: Closing the meeting: Make sure everyone gets a turn to share their thoughts, check for questions, and close the meeting with a recap of the results (i.e. is your child supposed to do a new chore? is the parent going to try and use their calm voice more often?)

There is a sweet spot for expectations. Setting unrealistic expectations( too low or too high) and your child may experience decreased motivation, perceive a lack of support or become resentful and stressed out. So how do you know which expectations are realistic? Talk with your child, your child's teachers, and their coaches (if applicable). Ask questions to evaluate strengths, areas needing improvement, and perceived effort. Lead all efforts with compassion, understanding, and kindness. You want to push your child to improve, but also want to try and live in that expectation sweet spot!

At a brick and mortar school, teachers help your student with their schedule. As a distance learner, your student's teacher will provide you with learning activities and it's up to you/your student when they will complete this work. Create a schedule for each day of the week that works for your family and stick with it! Remember, distance learning requires an increased level of organization and time management for maximum success.

• Plan Ahead: Never wait until the day before an assignment due date to start working on it. Your student will stress and will prevent them from effectively completing the online task. Furthermore, knowing when all of your assignments are due until the end of the eLearning course will facilitate your time management; for instance, if you are going on vacation in the middle of the eLearning course, your student can study ahead. Please help by being your student's secretary!

• Have a Calendar System: Online learning needs structure; help your student create a study calendar that will help them remember all important dates, like exams, or deadlines for submitting your assignments. They can save their calendar on their computer or mobile device, or you can even create a wall planner, which you/your student can mark up and check daily.

• Create To-Do Lists: At the start of each week, help your student make a to-do list of the tasks they need to complete by the end of the week. This is an excellent way to prioritize the study plan and stay on track with course work.

• Stay on Schedule: Help your student stick to their study plan. Procrastination is the worst enemy of online learners, so help your student stay organized. If they are having difficulties submitting assignments on time, encourage them to contact their online course instructor and school counselor so a study plan can be drafted.

Schedule frequent check ins with your student and make sure your student knows when they are to occur . Depending on the level of need your student requires and age, set a daily or twice a week check in. During the check in, review the expectations agreed upon, work progress, areas needing improvement, and successes. Help your student follow through with their responsibilities before they get free time.

You can’t punish your child into better behavior. Forget about over-the-top punishments or ineffective rules because you’ll just end up in a power struggle.

• Use consequences, not punishments: A consequence is something that follows naturally from an action.

• Make consequences system known ahead of time: Consequences shouldn't be a surprise. Your child should know what is expected of them and what consequence is likely to follow if they choose not to complete their responsibilities.

• Consequences need to be time specific & make sense: If possible, consequences should happen within close proximity to the action. If the consequence is removal of a privilege (i.e. phone, video games, screen time, etc.) it should be established soon after the event and be easily earned back. For example, your student doesn't follow through on agreed upon nightly school work because they are playing video games, it would make sense for their gaming to be revoked until they can follow through on their school work responsibilities. It’s not effective to remove privileges for vague or long stretches of time. If you take something away for three months, that is an eternity in the life of your child and they'll feel like the whole thing is pointless.

• Consequences are about learning: The best consequences are those from which the child learns something. For example, if your child is rude to their sibling you may choose to withhold their phone until he writes her a letter to the sibling addressing what they will do differently next time.

Source: Visit the empowering parents webpage for additional information on issuing consequences.