The 21st Century has heralded a time when the centre of all our technological advances is the concept of communication. Better, faster, easier. However the technology can have the reverse affect, families can disconnect due to them all being focused on communicating with someone other than those in their own homes, in their own families. Technology can pull families apart. Along comes Me in a Tree, a family focused sight with the ‘Family Huddle’ at the centre of it all.
The people behind the site (which requires a paid subscription) allows all the family members to create their own avatars and maintain their own calendars, values and chore charts, which then culminate in family “huddles” or meetings, where the family can discuss mutually agreed upon issues and after provide feedback on the ‘success’ of the huddle.
My ten year old is a tad dubious about the whole process. He enjoyed the set up, but putting the concept into action was met with less enthusiasm. This isn’t just a family organizer, calendar share site, this idea is to bring families together, but the families have to all agree to want to be brought together and to use this site as a tool, otherwise there really isn’t much point. At ten he is sceptical of a gimmick, so this site may not be for him. However, for younger children, where the mom or dad can work with them on the site, discuss the issues they want to bring up in the huddle and delegation of chores and responsibility, this is probably a good tool for our cyber savvy kids.
The site wants to be a help for parents too, it has a whole section on parenting resources, forums and ‘ask an expert.’ There is also a quiz where you can see how ‘in the weeds’ your family dynamic truly is and what needs work. Again, you have to WANT your family to do better to take full advantage of the resources available.
My daughter likes the ‘duties.’ She has been working on who has to do what….we are not sure what her brother thinks of her planning and will have to wait until our next ‘huddle’ to discuss this. So we can safely say that this site appeals to her need for organizing and controlling the rest of us slackers. I would love to hear from other families who are trying it out to see who in their family took to the site with the most enthusiasm. I have a feeling when the fun of doing stuff online clashes with the ‘horror’ of doing real chores around the house on a REGULAR basis ( my biggest personal beef at home), the magic will wear off.
However, I think if enough families embraced the site as a community focus where not only could families pull together but other families take advantage of the forums and HELP each other instead of the usual parental judgement that floats around cyberspace, this could be a great place for support sharing.
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