A New Tradition for Family Gatherings and Holidays: FRED Talks!

**This article originally appeared on Raise the Good, a website of inspiring resources for families that “educate the heart” in fun, easy, and meaningful ways.

I hate to brag, but my family is really awesome (seriously!). We have social workers, educators, marriage and family therapists/college professors, lawyers, software developers, real estate investors, nurses, and more! I’ll bet your family has similarly fascinating people. I want to learn from all these cool people, and FRED talks at our family reunions are a super fun way to do it.

The rules are easy:

1. You only talk if you want to. This way, FRED talks are super easy and low pressure.
2. Talk about whatever you want.
3. Talk or lead a discussion for as long or as short a time as you want. The ideal for us has been 5-10 minutes. It’s not too long, and it doesn’t take a ton of time to prepare for it.

This year, we learned about: our resident headmaster’s efforts on the new school he has been developing, the LGBTQ legal history in the court system, how to properly perform the Heimlich and CPR, a new software tool that makes analytics for businesses super easy, a theory on personality types, and, finally, a particular epistemology in psychology that was really interesting.

It was so fun to learn new stuff, get to know my family members better, and have interesting, and educational discussions that I might not otherwise have. Kids can chime in, too! This year my daughter Katie prepared a talk about what she learned about Mars in her science class.

Here’s how we handle the logistics.

– Designate a time for the FRED talks. We like to do it at night after the little kids get in bed.
– Decide who is speaking. My family likes to do as many people as possible, so we try to do 3-4 people each night, so we aren’t burned out and they stay fun. (With 10 original members of the family, plus in-laws and grandkids, we have to pace ourselves!)
– Props are helpful. Computers hooked up to TVs for slides or other visual/audio aids are really great.

That’s it! Let the family love, bonding and learning begin!