tyabblemons Said:

Communications is at the very heart of a successful family. We've found a way to use a password protected blog to share information really easily with all of our large family.

"I could never get everyone together in the same room!"

Our family is diverse, and while we're a tight unit, we all have individual lives. We can communicate by SMS text for free, with our phone plans. But text messages can be clumsy, and often arrive at awkward moments - especially if you're a student studying in class. We don't want to distract the kids while they're in school. Also, Facebook is blocked by the school, and Facey is not the most private of platforms. The blog is a much neater option.

By using a password protected blog, they can check for updates at a convenient time for them.

I use tricks to keep them checking the blog. We give away a (small) daily prize to the first person to text me the code number embedded in the day's post. But it turned out that this wasn't really needed. One of my sons said "Dad, if you put comments on this, I'll never use Facebook again!" So I put comments in (by Disqus), and we haven't looked back.

We post about all kinds of things - about appointments, after-school snacks, dinner plans, jobs to be done and a million and one little things that we need to communicate to each other to keep the family running smoothly.

The family really likes the blog. They like the concept, and they like using it. They are able to publish to the blog if they wish, and have done, or they can just interact via the comments. We no longer have to find each kid and let them know what's going on.

Communications has always been the secret to our family's success.

We're using free Evernote and free postach.io to host the blog, and they provide the domain for free. I don't know what other platforms have a login option for a blog, but we keep it behind a password because our traffic is private.