Family life gets busy. Pressures of work, school, sports and social activities leave little time for spending quality time together as a family. A holiday gathering or vacation are nice ways to escape the grind and bond, but making quality family time part of daily habits at home is an even better way to positively impact relationships with your kids and spouse. Here are 5 ways to incorporate quality family time into daily life without leaving home.
Enjoy Recreational Activities in Your Yard
Your own backyard is an ideal place for great family bonding experiences. Set up a picnic in your outdoor space, complete with homemade food and outdoor games. Try stargazing on a clear night. The kids will love making up stories about the constellations. A backyard campout can be an easy way to introduce the kids to the joys of sleeping in the outdoors. Pitch a tent, tell ghost stories and create shadow puppet plays. Depending upon local laws you can even make a campfire to cook your dinner and roast marshmallows over the open fire.
A backyard swimming pool is an excellent feature that will bring families together for quality time. Before assuming the backyard pool is a luxury without enough return, consider the tremendous benefits of quality family time against the initial in ground pool cost and you will find the obvious worth of having a place for the whole family to gather and swim in your own backyard. A pool setting is the perfect environment for nurturing family interactions by playing games, holding friendly challenge competitions, or teaching the kids to swim. The kids are less likely to want to go to a friend’s house if they can spend time in their own backyard pool.
Play Board Games
Playing board games has become popular among all ages in recent years. There are many new games designed and marketed with the entire family in mind. Find a game that suits the ages, interests and attention span of your entire family group. Enlist the whole family in deciding which game to play, or take turns making the choice.
Read Aloud
Introducing the wonder of books and instilling a love for reading are great ways to spend quality time with your kids. You will not only help them with their reading and comprehension skills, but a good book can lead to further discussions on a wide range of topics. Some books may identify a place that the family can visit later as an extended part of the activity.
Plan and Prepare Meals
Planning, preparing, and cooking meals takes up valuable time, but treat it as an opportunity to spend significant minutes together as a family. Preparing meals and baking with your kids are easy ways to teach basic cooking skills that will be valuable when they get older. Cooking together might involve selecting and trying a new dish, or it could be an opportunity to pass an old family recipe to the next generation. Planning and choosing ingredients for a meal together gets everyone vested in the different foods being served and may encourage the less adventurous to try new things. Time spent while cooking can be filled with discussions on a range of topics, from serious to silly.
Take Pictures
Taking pictures together can be a golden way to experience quality time with your family. Nearly all adults, and even many children, have access to a camera on their mobile phone. Whether it is taking a selfie, a candid or posed photo, these treasures will memorialize your shared experiences of daily life. You and your children will come back to them year after year as positive reminders of the quality time spent together.
Conclusion
Quality family time does not have to involve excessive planning or expense. Terrific memories and tight bonds can be made in everyday activities right at home. Making quality moments a part of daily habits will most certainly pay off with positives for family relationships and experiences just as enjoyable as any activities outside of the home.