Tips on Spending More Quality Time with Your Family
Life just zooms right by you, doesn’t it? We have to learn to relax, stop working or thinking about work, and just be present in the moment. However, spending our free time doing fun activities is not our biggest problem today – we already know what we like to do in our free time and how to enjoy it. For example, many people play sports, and go to movies with their friends. The problem that we don’t often think of though is spending more time with our family. In our race to fulfill our obligations, we often forget how important family is. Sure, we’ll visit and get visited for the holidays, but that’s not really what spending time with family is about.
The family is important. They are your allies and friends when things get tough. They are also the people who know you best. So, here are a few ways you can spend more time with your family.
Reading
Are you a bookworm? Are your SO and kids? Perfect. Reading together promotes spending time together without intruding on anyone’s privacy. Think of it as being alone with friends. It is also quiet, with no incessant typing or TV blaring in the background.
The added benefit of reading is the urge by the readers to discuss their book with someone. You and your daughter, for example, could discuss various characters in The Brothers Karamazov. You could recommend a new book genre to each other and be more open to new ideas, which is a great way to connect.
Cooking
First thing’s first. It doesn’t matter what your gender is, you should know how to cook. Cooking together turns a time-consuming task into a fun team-building exercise. What’s special about it is that you can enjoy the fruits of your labor within a few minutes or hours, depending on the dish.
You can use this opportunity to teach your kids how certain dishes are made. Cooking is a necessary skill in life, and your kids will get somewhat nostalgic when doing this chore in the future.
Taking a Walk
Find a time when all family members are available for this one. Taking a slow, relaxing walk may seem boring at first, but you can adjust your plans according to what your family enjoys. It could be a walk around the park, or by the river, followed by a trip to a pastry shop, or a pizzeria. Take in the sights and discuss the events in your lives.
Walking is also great exercise for those that don’t lead very active lives. There will be resistance at first, especially form the couch potatoes in the family, but as time progresses, this will be your special activity.
Busy, Busy, Busy
It’s hard to make your schedule match that of your kids or spouse. After all, we each have our own obligations and preferred ways of having fun, so much so that other people bother us. To fight this, find a time that cannot be rescheduled, come hell or high water. It doesn’t have to be every single day, but make it a point to spend time with each other at least once a week.
Every Sunday, regardless of what some of our respective friends had planned, my family would sit at a table and eat together. The TV was sometimes on, but that wasn’t the point. We were together, we worked together to make that meal and we talked.
