My kids wrote a family success plan. Their user guides are next.
22 June 2026
Yesterday, I sat with my kids and ran a "family huddle."
My girls are 9, 7 and 4. The 4-year-old was napping, so she skipped the meeting.
We wrote a family success plan together. It is like a business plan, but for the family.
We answer things like:
- What do we agree on?
- Where are the boundaries?
- What bond us as a team?
The surprising part: my kids wanted to run it. (wow!)
They grabbed the pen. Wrote the agreements. Pushed back on boundaries. Pointed out what was working and what wasn't. There were some finger pointing to daddy that I failed at times. But hey, that's okay. It's factual.
They were also very creative about negotiating for what they wanted.
I don't know yet if any of this will stick. But it is a good start.
The idea came from the book Calm the Chaos by Dayna Abraham. It is one of the better parenting books I've read.
A lot of parenting advice feels like defence.
- Set rules.
- Give consequences.
- Stop bad behaviour.
- Contain the chaos.
This book plays offence. My words, not hers. It asks you to see your kid's difficult traits as strengths that need direction, not problems to remove.
Play to their strengths and redirect the energy. Spend less time correcting the worst version of them. It gave me an alternative way to think about parenting.
I'm always fascinated by the parallels between parenting and running a startup.
A family huddle is like team offsite. The success plan is a strategy doc.
The agreements and boundaries are operating principles.
The book also suggests that every family member writes a user guide. Like a short note explaining how you work, what you need, what frustrates you, and what helps you calm down.
I know this one.
At my previous startup, I wrote my user guide and encouraged the team to do the same. I wrote about it here: Small disclosures build bonds faster than time.
I have no idea what they'll write. Which is exactly why I want them to do it. 😊
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P.S. You know they say karma's a bitch. My kids are just like me.. strong-willed, challenging, and a little ADHD-ish. I've learned I can be hard to work with. Some of that's parenting, but a lot of it's definitely DNA. Karma, indeed.