Go read the Disclaimer again. I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. Seriously.
Families tend to be hierarchical, with parents officially making the decisions. Most people recognize that tyranny, even in the family, is bad. But while a lot of people appreciate including input from others, they have a hard time accepting even democratic family structures, much less consensus based family structures. Gordon's classic Parent Effectiveness Training devotes the vast majority of its text to convincing readers that, not only does consensus decision making work, nothing else does in a family context (or possibly anywhere).
While validating emotions and taking the perspective of others, especially children, can go a long ways towards reducing conflict, it is perhaps half the battle. While autonomy support reduces conflict further, a family of completely autonomous individuals is oxymoronic. What to do if the individuals are to be interdependent and conflicting ideas must be resolved? Trusting self-reports will allow a hierarchical or democratic structure to limp along, but consensus decision making will, in theory, speed the process up enormously. It looks slow, especially at the beginning as a group gets the hang of the process, but decisions no longer need to be enforced; everyone is pulling together truly, with no one forced to carrot-and-stick compliance. Transitioning to consensus is tricky, and halfway measures will be spotted. You can lose a lot of respect if you are not prepared to go through with true consensus, or are only prepared to use consensus in matters you do not care about. If you can survive the transformation of your family and yourself that will result, you will be able to enjoy your family, not just now, but effectively forever.
Copyright 2006 by Rebecca Allen.
Created March 9, 2006 Updated March 9, 2006