Get the Family Meeting Playbook

What this playbook covers

The playbook is written for the sibling who is calling the meeting — usually the primary caregiver, occasionally the one flying in for the weekend to make the conversation happen. Every chapter is grounded in family-systems therapy, professional mediation practice, and interviews with families who ran the meeting and stayed intact at the other end. Here is what the 16 pages actually contain.

• The one-page agenda. A proven meeting structure that keeps a 90-minute conversation from becoming a four-hour spiral, plus the eleven decisions the meeting is supposed to make explicit.
• The opening script. The first ten minutes decide the tone of the next three hours. The playbook gives you the specific words for the sentence that opens the meeting without accusing anyone.
• Ground rules that survive contact with your family. The four rules mediators use in high-conflict family meetings and the phrasing that gets siblings to agree to them without eye-rolls.
• The sibling who will not commit. Three responses to the underperforming sibling that keep the door open without letting them off the hook, plus what to say when the response is "I am doing my best."
• The RACI sheet for family caregiving. A one-page worksheet naming who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for each caregiving task — the instrument that stops the "I thought you were handling that" pattern.
• Email templates. The invitation email that gets siblings to actually show up, and the follow-up summary email that documents the decisions so nothing has to be re-litigated the next time you gather.

What you will do with it in the first 7 days

Day one is reading. You sit down with the playbook, read it end to end in about 45 minutes, and mark the chapters that describe your family most directly. Day two is the invitation email — you use the template in Chapter 11 verbatim, or adapt the four paragraphs the template names as adjustable, and send it to every sibling and the parent whose care is being discussed.

Day three through five is preparation. You print the one-page agenda and the RACI worksheet, one copy for each attendee. You choose the setting per Chapter 4's guidance — kitchen table, not video call for the first meeting if geography allows. You write your own three-sentence answer to the opening question so you are not composing it in the moment. Day six is the meeting itself, 90 minutes with the agenda and the ground rules on the table. Day seven is the follow-up summary email, written the same evening while memory is fresh, sent to every attendee including your parent. Seven days from "we need to talk" to a documented decision your family can build on.

How the delivery works

The flow is deliberately small. Enter your email in the form below and click the button. Within thirty seconds we send a confirmation message from hello at morriselder dot com — open it and click the confirm link. Within five minutes of that click, the download link arrives in your inbox from the same address. Corporate mail servers occasionally add two or three minutes of delay; if the email does not appear, check your promotions or spam folder and mark the message as not spam so the rest of the course lands where you can see it. The thank-you page in your browser also carries the download link inline as a backup for the next 24 hours.

Once you confirm, you join the free 12-part Family Caregiver Foundation course. One email every three or four days for about five weeks, each 400 to 600 words. Estimated reading time for the playbook itself is 35 to 45 minutes for a full pass, and most families reread the specific chapter that matches the sibling who is being difficult that week. Unsubscribe with one click at any point and your address leaves every list within one business day.

Our editorial ethics, in three sentences

We do not accept payment from mediators, elder-law firms, or care agencies to include their names in any playbook, and we do not sell subscriber data or swap lists with any partner. We send at most one email per week after the 12-part course completes, and every email carries a one-click unsubscribe link. If you write back with a question about a specific family dynamic, a real person on the editorial team reads and replies personally — the reply address is monitored, not automated.

What to read next on morriselder.com

If you want to keep reading while you wait for the download email to arrive, three flagship articles pair naturally with this playbook.

• Moving a parent out of the home they love — the conversation nobody wants to lead.
• The uninvolved-sibling problem — why the load lands unevenly and what actually shifts an absent sibling toward involvement.
• Family meeting guide (the flagship) — the long-form editorial companion to this playbook.

Common questions about the playbook