Icebreakers for Meetings
In a La Leche League monthly Series Meeting, mothers gather in a group for an informal discussion for the first part of each session. The Leader will often start by going around the circle asking everyone’s name, their children’s names and ages and any challenges they are facing. In When Meeting Introductions Are the Meeting, Kathy Grossman explains more about the advantages of this type of sharing.
An alternative approach before or after the introductions is for the Leader to ask a more specific “icebreaker” question to encourage everyone sharing, laughing and relaxing. When we meet someone for the first time, it can be handy to find some neutral ground to start a conversation or “break the ice.” Icebreakers (questions that can encourage people to talk) help us get to know one another and feel more comfortable together. On the LLL Leaders Facebook page, we asked for some of your favorite icebreakers.
Icebreakers for meetings
How did you sleep last night? (The discussion that follows can take up a whole meeting)
Barbara Higham, LLL Great Britain
How did you choose your baby’s name?
Devon Miller, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
What is the biggest change in your baby during the last month?
What has been the biggest change in your family’s life this year?
J. Elder-Gomes, LLL Canada.
What makes you smile about your baby?
What have you achieved this morning?
What’s your favorite place to breastfeed?
What makes your toddler giggle?
Justine Fieth, LLL Great Britain
What are you most looking forward to about spring, summer, fall, or winter?
What did you resolve for this year (or what would you resolve if you had time for resolutions!)?
What is one great memory you have of your first child’s birth?
Karen Smith, Illinois, USA
“Tell me two truths and a lie.” Hand out a small piece of paper and ask mothers to write down their two truths and one lie about themselves. They read them out loud and other members have to guess which one is not true. It can easily generate a good discussion.
Melissa Peddy, Virginia, USA
What did you have for breakfast?
Emma Gardner, LLL Great Britain
If you had to choose one meal or one food to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Mariana Mastracchio, New York, USA
What did you have for dinner last night? Shows how we are all different but have all come to the same meeting for breastfeeding.
How do you dry your clothes? This one shows how ingenious women are at using what they have or parts of the house in a way not originally intended!
Nik Harris, LLL Great Britain.
How do you dry and sort family socks after washing? Going round the circle it is surprising how many different answers there will be and generates quite a bit of fun, laughter, and jokes about odd socks. It leads nicely into, “We don’t all launder our socks the same way and we won’t all mother the same way. Please take what ideas you like from the meeting and leave the rest behind!”
Anna Burbidge (from an original idea by Alison Parkes), LLL Great Britain
What was on your list of “I will never” before the baby or before pregnancy that you have embraced now?
Michele Karver, Pennsylvania, USA
