@Anna – we don’t have ours at a set time (though Sun night is often good). Once every other week is probably the right frequency, though we tend to do it a bit less often and send intermediate updates.

Part of why we have trouble keeping to the weekly planning meetings is it comes to a bigger issue that goes to some of your other posts. I’m a big believer to let’s plan fun things because if we don’t,
we sit around the house and bicker. My husband does not subscribe to that philosophy and would much rather have big open spaces on the calendar that allow for more spontaneous activities or getting stuff done on the eternal house to-do list. I hate the eternal house to-do list. So as to avoid this conflict when i come up with lots of “fun” activities, I just put them on the calendar and have the calendar notifications serve as notice.

@Caitlyn – excellent! So glad the weekend planning is helping to create real free time for both of you on the weekends.

@Gillian – I like the idea of the quarterly kid meetings. This would definitely help with camp planning, special day/birthday planning and figuring out which playdates are priorities.

We recently started quarterly meetings with our 3 oldest kids (11, 8 and 5). We discuss school, friends (requests for playdates, problems with friends, etc), activities and finances (they have allowance and are expected to manage their money and contribute some to charity). We do these in September (after school has been in session a few weeks), December (to discuss camp options among other things), March and June. It has been helpful to set aside this time to chat with them 1:1 about these issues.