About Us

Our Little Blue Box: families working together and listening to each other 

By: Hillel Katzeff 

The cultural gap between the values I grew up with in Cape Town and the ones my kids experienced growing up in San Diego are a world apart and stand in stark contrast to one another.  Back then, there was no Internet or cell phone technology – and TV broadcasts were just beginning in South Africa.  Today, the messages the kids are bombarded with on TV are relentless.  Kids today expect instant rather than delayed gratification.  With our busy lives, even having dinner together is a struggle.  

Using my namesake, Hillel the Elder’s wisdom as inspiration and as my guide, I began began a journey about being a better person and a better listener.  I discovered that listening circles have been around in different cultures for generations.  To share this process, I packaged what I learned into a kit I called Our Little Blue Box process.   

The Our Little Blue Box process 

The Blue Box comes from a Blue colored charity box when people could make donations to the JNF Jewish National Fund with the original goal of planting trees during the early years of the founding of the state of Israel. 

The process itself is a self-guided and simple.  It involves the family periodically convening in a family listening circle.  At the heart/center of the kit is a Little Blue Box that helps one to take the focus off oneself and towards the family as a whole.  The kit also includes a Talking Ball (talking Stick) that empowers the person holding it to speak uninterrupted, a sand timer and a booklet containing guidelines. 

Through a series of open-ended questions, everyone in the family takes turns to talk and be listened to.  The Our Little Blue Box itself then takes on a very important significance and meaning to the family, who may keep it with other important family items, in a place that is visible and serves as a reminder of their good intentions. 

My Story: Healing Family Rifts 

If your family is anything like mine, rifts may have developed between relatives who don’t talk to each other – for whatever reason.  I did not get to know some of my cousins and relatives because of family rifts.  The reasons for the rifts had long been forgotten, but the fallout has been poor or non-existent inter-family relationships.   

During a visit to Cape Town for a nephews wedding, I took the opportunity to call on all my relatives and invite them for coffee and cake.  To my pleasant surprise most of my relatives showed up, including my uncles and aunts, their children and grandchildren.  Everyone was happily chatting while standing around.  After a while, I gained their attention and thanked them for coming.  I told them that I had come up with a way to help families communicate better and invited them to sit on chairs that I had arranged in a circle. 

I placed the Katzeff Family Little Blue Box on the table and removed the Talking Ball.  I explained that only the person holding the ball could talk, while everyone else would listen.   

I began the first round by making a positive statement about our family and asked everyone to express how they feel at that moment, using the weather as an analogy – e.g. warm, sunny, foggy etc. The ball was passed around from person to person until everyone had a turn.   

Once the Talking Ball came back to me, I asked the question:  “What can we do, as a family, to have better communication with each other?”  It was very moving to hear the responses, that ranged from some grandchildren who innocently stated that didn’t even know that they had relatives, or that they only have vague memories of the relatives (even thought they live in the same city).  There were many tears shed that evening.  My one uncle pulled me aside after the family circle had concluded.  He said that he would make the effort to stay in touch and asked for my mothers (his sisters) phone number in Israel. 

My mother was pleasantly surprised to hear from her brother, who hadn’t talked to each other in years.  Their relationship was rekindled. Our Little Blue Box made it possible to mend our family rifts.   

Other Little Blue Box Uses 

There are many possible opportunities to use Our Little Blue Box – from families with younger children discussing and coordinating schedules to discussing how we can help each other in our family.  I have also found that Our Little Blue Box can be a useful tool to allow family members to talk and listen to each other about money.  It may be used during a family crisis to solicit all opinions and take some of the emotion out of the situation.  

Thank you for giving Our Little Blue Box method of respectfully talking and listening a try. If you do, please let me know how it works for you. 

Thank you.

Wishing you and your family well.

Hillel