02 MAY 2024

How to Keep Your Kids Free From Overuse of Technology

Read time: 5 minutes
I teach concerned parents, typically parents who are business owners, how to organize family meetings. Parents are taught how to run their own family meetings to keep deep connections with their children and have them reach their highest potential.
Social media, video games and overuse of technology are distracting our kids into isolation and crippling them from reaching their highest potential. This means getting them to reach their full potential has been a bigger challenge than ever. Until now…
I have created an easy way to help parents run their own family meetings and keep kids on track, free from device distraction to ensure they reach their full potential. How?
I spent the last 3 years running my own weekly family meetings with my own boys who were 11 and 14 when I started. I discovered a format that keeps kids focused, aligned with family values ready for them to reach their full potential. After running over 150 family meetings, I have created my own framework parents can replicate. Now any parent can run their own family meetings, keep kids free from distractions and ensure they reach their full potential.
Is running a family meeting easy? No. It’s hard. Is it worth it? Yes. This point can’t be overlooked because the framework I have created is proven to work and is much too detailed to write in a single blog post. Stay tuned for the exhaustive framework to be available for parents soon.
The following is only the overview of how The Family Meeting is structured.
The Family Meeting is structured around a 3 hour block of time. Why? I experienced some really important life lessons being taught to our children in 1 minute intervals. Typically on the way to school or Soccer and often ending with a door slamming. I knew that wasn’t right. And these topics deserved much more time and attention. It deserved long form conversations.
Simply The Family Meeting is setting aside a few hours to have long form conversations and providing the proper guidance to your children. It’s a mixture of quality family time and the teaching of important life lessons. The results I have found are that my children now gravitate towards me to provide them with guidance towards their life. Oppose to hiding in their room.
Framing of The Family Meeting
  • You will notice some aspects of my Family Meeting might be different from yours. Feel free to change what you think is suitable for your needs.
  • I did leave in some details that demonstrate how aspects of The Family Meeting are tailored to requirements based on the children’s behavior. Watch for that to see how you can self navigate for your specific needs.
Scheduling The Family Meeting
It was hard to start the process of family meetings at first. 3 hours (in a row) was a big commitment of time.
  • We had to schedule our first Family Meeting a few weeks in advance because of scheduling conflicts. Our meeting started Sunday morning from 9am-12(noon). We do this each week now.
  • We had to ensure the weeks preceding would not conflict with the already scheduled Family meeting. Keeping in mind this required coordination with the missus. And we both had to commit to that.
Before The Family Meeting Starts
  • I schedule The Family Meetings in the morning from 9am to 12(noon). We need everyone to be attentive. Afternoon and evening meetings don’t work as well. Trust me I have tried.
  • The kids should be getting up around 8am. If they roll out of bed at 8:55am you won’t have an attentive child at 9am.
  • The kids should either shower or jump in the pool. We have a pool in our backyard so it is mandatory for them to jump in before the meeting starts. Meetings in December are fun and the kiddos are very much attentive during those meetings. Parents join the kids in the pool. 2mins is all that is required.
  • Sunday, the day of The Family Meeting, the kids know it’s a no device day. That means they arrive at the meeting with no device or technology with a screen. In prior meetings I have taught them the value of being bored and allowing their minds to wonder and day dream.
Food Before The Family Meeting
  • A giant meal with lots of carbs is a great way to ensure your kids get food coma at 9:15am. Remember we want attentive minds.
  • Suggested foods: Sliced fruit, veggies or some meats. Small portions only.
  • Before we eat we also do weigh-ins. Everyone has to step on the scale and I track their weight. I have to do this specifically because our youngest is borderline diabetic and we decided as a family we would all work together to help fight it. Later in the agenda section you will find that a larger section of time is dedicated to food and health.
When The Family Meetings Starts
  • Our Family Meeting starts with long hugs. Each person has to hug each other. No side hugs, no quick hugs. Long hugs and we have to say “Good Morning” and “I love you” to each other with eye contact. Now I did this by design when I noticed my oldest becoming affectionately timid and rude towards his younger brother. Now we don’t have that problem anymore.
  • After our hugs Mom and the boys sit on the coach. I have my own chair sitting across from them. I’m speaking to them and there is a coffee table between us.
  • After everyone sits down, I review everyone’s weight. How is everyone trending. Yes, even Mom steps on the scale.
  • I highly recommend doing this regardless. You would not believe what hidden illnesses can be seen just by weighing someone every week.
  • I know when my youngest boy is eating too much candy. I know when my oldest is dehydrated. My wife started losing a significant amount of weight and I rushed her to the doctor and she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. It’s not required for the meeting but try it.
The Agenda for The Family Meetings
Personally I have studied philosophy my entire life and I know exactly what topics and issues to discuss with my children. What I discuss I would address later in future posts.
However this doesn’t have to be complicated or sophisticated. It also doesn’t have to be dictated by me. The real purpose is having long form conversions between parents and children. If you are struggling with what topics to address, keep it very simple. And let’s teach them things that benefit their life.Things that are good. This way they can reach their highest potential. Live a life filled with self-esteem and achievement. The rest is up to you.
  • Remind them it’s important to get good grades. How are everyone’s grades? And go into details on why it’s important to try and do well in school.
  • It took me 5 months and 20 meetings to get my son to do his homework consistently. I had to teach him how getting 0 for his homework was destroying his grades. He didn’t understand how much an impact a 0 has on an average.
  • Remind them it’s important to eat healthy foods. Healthy foods are typically whole foods. Foods that are not processed. Go into detail on why it’s important to eat right and take care of your body.
  • My youngest was overweight. It took 12 months and 50 meetings to reduce his weight by 40LB. He went from being a benched soccer player to captain of his team. He later ran a marathon at the age of 13. But that is a story for another day.
  • They have weekly reading. The title of the book is “How to be a Gentleman.” Am I expecting them to be perfect? No. But I’m expecting them at a young age to understand the idea, the concept of having manners. Then I explain why it’s important to have good manners.
  • Remind them it’s important to see what their body is capable of doing. Mandatory to play a sport? No. But they should be doing things outside. Then I explain why its important to to be physically active. What that is, I’ll leave it up to you but also share a quote I shared with the boys each week “It is a shame for a person to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which their body is capable”
The Family Meeting ends the same way it started. We all stand up, we give each other long hugs and we say “I love you”. The rest of the day is scheduled so the boys are not on their devices and play with each other. That evening we all have dinner together.
This might be considered rigid, strict, controlling select whatever word you like for The Family Meeting framework. And at first I had no idea how this was going to land with my kids.
I leave you with this. After two months of our family meetings, a conflict in scheduling arose. And our youngest overhead that Sunday morning was not available to run The Family Meeting. In a panic he asked “What are we going to do? Maybe we can have it on Saturday?”.
The following week, our oldest had friends over. And in passing I found him standing in front of the Easel flipping through the pages of the giant note pad. His friends surrounded him and were listening to his explanation.
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Every Sunday morning, you’ll get 1 actionable tip from me to keep your kids free from isolation and distractions, in less than 4 minutes. The result is ensuring your kids reach their highest potential while creating relationships that last a lifetime.