System 11
Communication · Information
The Family Information System
So one person stops being the household's notification centre.
- Who it's for
- Households where everyone asks the same person everything
- When it runs
- 20 minutes to set up. A few minutes a week
The invisible load
“What time is football?” asked four times by four people.
The change of plan that was told to one child in the car and to nobody else.
The parent who cannot leave the house mentally because they are the only one who knows the day.
The teenager who genuinely did not know, because nobody wrote it anywhere.
Why we resist this
Answering is faster than publishing
Telling someone the time takes three seconds. Putting it where everyone can see it takes thirty. The three-second option wins every time, and then it wins forty times a week.
We assume a new app will fix it
Most families already have three places information could live. Adding a fourth reliably makes it worse. The fix is choosing, not acquiring.
Remove before you add
The goal is fewer places to look, not a better place to look.
- How many places does information currently live, and which one do people actually check?
- Which questions are asked repeatedly because the answer is not written anywhere?
- What is being communicated that nobody needs?
- Could one weekly summary replace twenty individual messages?
Set this up first
- Choose the one place that answers what is happening this week. Usually the calendar or a small board.
- Choose the one channel for changes: the family chat, a note on the board, or whatever people already read.
- Say out loud that the answer to a logistics question is now a location rather than a person.
- Agree that anything not in the place has not been communicated. This protects everyone equally.
The system
What is happening
The week, visible. Days, times, who is going where. This is the calendar's job and nothing else's.
What I need
The kit, the money, the form, the clothes. Attached to the day, not held in an adult's head.
What changed
One channel for changes, with a habit of saying it once to everyone rather than three times to individuals.
Where I look
Everyone can answer this question without hesitating. If they cannot, the system does not exist yet.
Running it
Publish rather than answer
When a question is asked, add the answer to the place and point to it. The first fortnight feels slower. After that the questions stop.
One weekly broadcast
At the weekly reset, say the week out loud once. Most repeated questions are people trying to recover information they never received.
Changes go to everyone
A change told to one person is a change that will be re-explained twice. One message, one place.
Teach the children where to look
Answer with the location for a fortnight. Children learn a system quickly when the alternative stops working.
Prune it
If the place is full of things nobody reads, it stops being read at all. Keep it to this week.
When this stops working
Everyone still asks one person.
That person is still answering. It is hard to stop, because answering feels helpful. Point rather than tell, for two weeks.
Information lives in three places again.
Choose the one people actually check and move everything there, even if it is the least sophisticated option.
The family chat becomes noise.
Separate logistics from conversation. Logistics in the place, chat in the chat.
Who owns what
System owner
One adult keeps the place current. The role can rotate, but it should be named.
System users
Everyone old enough to read or be shown.
Child's role
Checking rather than asking, at whatever level fits their age. A five-year-old can look at a picture; a fifteen-year-old can read the calendar.
Shared role
Anyone who commits the family to something puts it in the place.
Make it easier
- Use what people already open, rather than what is best designed.
- Put the week where people already stand still: the kettle, the fridge, the bathroom door.
- Write it once and photograph it if it needs to travel.
- Answer questions with 'have a look at the board' rather than with the answer.
Make it yours
Teens
They will use a shared digital calendar long before they use a wall. Give them access rather than updates, and expect them to add their own commitments.
Younger children
Pictures and a single row for today. A week view is meaningless before about seven.
Two households
Agree one shared channel between adults for logistics, kept factual and short, so the child never carries the message.
The minimum viable system
One place that answers 'what is happening today?'
- 01Choose the place.
- 02Put today and tomorrow on it.
- 03Tell everyone that is where to look.
- 04Point to it instead of answering, for two weeks.
Keep this line
If the answer lives in a person, that person can never fully leave the room.
A note from Sian
Being the household's information source is one of the least visible and most tiring roles in family life. It is not the individual answers that exhaust people; it is the requirement to hold the whole picture continuously, in case someone needs part of it.
Moving that picture into a shared place does not make a family less connected. It frees the conversations for something other than logistics.
Thrive Family Systems are psychoeducational family wellbeing guidance. They are not therapy, diagnosis or medical advice, and they are not a substitute for support from a professional who knows your child.