There are countless reasons for you not to spend quality time with your family. You are always busy with work; you work on weekends, you spend hours in traffic and by the time you get home, you are already tired.
While these reasons are legitimate, research shows that families in which the members do things together and spend quality time together have their children lead happy and successful lives. Based on the conclusion from this research, it can be said that if you want your children to perform excellently in school – and build the foundation of a good career for them, you must take family time seriously.
In this post, we will show you the best ways to spend quality time with your family; however, if you need more reasons to be convinced of the importance of family time, then check out some benefits of spending quality time with your family below.
Jump to the 9 ways of spending quality time with family
Benefits of Spending Quality Time With Your Family
- It strengthens the family bond
Human beings are social animals, so we love to see ourselves as a part of a group that shares love and care. By deciding to spend quality time with your family, you are making all members of the family, including the kids, to become a united group that shows how much they love and care for one another.
The relationship between members of the family is strengthened, and everybody feels they are part of something special. This translates to a happy family.
- It allows parents to inculcate values in their kids
Children tend to grow up to imitate their parents. They pick up the habits of their parents, and they tend to treat their kids the way their parents treated them. Therefore, if you don’t create the room to spend quality time with your kids, they may do the same to their kids when they grow up.
To prevent this from happening, create family time, bond together with one another, have a good laugh, share memories – and during this time, let your kids get values from you.
- It provides an opportunity for kids to learn new things
When having family time, you are likely to discuss interesting topics in any area of life. Being young and still knowing little about the world, kids usually listen attentively so that they can learn new things and pick up topics they can talk about with their friends in school.
Also, family time can serve as the avenue for kids to learn about interesting family traditions, which they, too, would love to teach their kids when they grow up.
- It allows family members to better understand one another
If you are a parent that doesn’t spend time with your family, there is a high chance that you would only know little about your family members. You wouldn’t know what each member of the family loves, and you wouldn’t know what they dislike.
The evidence that you do not know what each member of your family loves or dislikes usually shows up when you want to celebrate their birthdays. You would find yourself racking your brain to pick up a gift they love.
By knowing what your partner and kids love or hate, it will be easy for you to impress them. But you can only know what they like and what they don’t by spending quality time with them.
- It allows you to find out one another’s personal struggle
The fact that you are living together in the same house with someone doesn’t mean you would know what the person is going through. There have been cases of kids contemplating suicide because of a bad experience without the parents being aware.
This kind of thing happens because the parents don’t create the opportunity for family members to come together and talk about things happening in their lives. One of the goals of the family is to support one another during good and bad times, but if the family members don’t always come together to share updates about their lives, achieving this goal will be difficult.
Now that we have gone through the benefits of spending quality time with your family, let’s share with you the best ways to spend it.
Best Ways to Spend Quality Time with Your Family
- Put down your phone
It’s not only the kids that get distracted by the phone. Adults get distracted, too, and the last thing you want to do when you plan to spend quality time with your family is to be going through social media or receiving calls.
To show your family that you care about them and that you wouldn’t allow a third party to interrupt the enjoyable moment you are having together, the best thing to do is to switch off your phone during family time. Depending on your kind of job, you may not be able to do this. However, you should be able to put down your phone and silent it.
You can later return the missed calls and respond to chats. During family time, your only focus should be on your family.
- Eat together
This may not be easy to do every day, as you or your partner may not get home on time and late dinner isn’t good for the children. Nevertheless, make it a part of your daily plan to eat at least one meal together with your family, and when you have time, make sure you join your family on the table.
Eating lunch together is almost impossible during the weekday, as you would be at work and the kids would be in school. However, you should eat either breakfast or dinner together.
- Go for a walk after dinner
This activity complements eating together, so your family members will love it. After eating dinner together and enjoying the meal, you guys can hit the road and take a walk around your neighbourhood. While strolling around, share thoughts and talk to one another to make it fun.
If a member of the family needs some time to digest the dinner before he or she can go for a walk, you can move the walk to before bedtime. Eating dinner together — and following it with a walk – is a very interesting way of spending quality time with family.
- Cook a meal together
Once in a while, call everybody to the kitchen and prepare a great meal. It is a way of spending quality time together. You can try out a new dish or cook the usual one. Now, imagine cooking dinner together, eating it together and then going for a walk afterwards.
That’s like back-to-back-to-back family time. It isn’t a must you cook, eat, walk out together though; but try at least to prepare a meal and eat together.
- Clean the house together
Revamping the house and moving the furniture around to get rid of clutters can be a good way to have family time. Normally, the chore can be tiring, but when done together as a family, it becomes fun. At the end of the chore, your house looks neater, well organized, and everybody is happy for doing something productive.
- Help with school assignment
Going through your children’s notebook – and helping with their homework is a pleasant way to spend quality time with them. Doing this allows you to know the subjects your children like and the ones they are struggling with, and you can know how to help out.
Helping your children with their homework also makes you know how well they are being taught in school. However, make sure you are only guiding them to do the assignment and not doing it for them.
- Go for a tour or picnic
Travelling is fun and serves as a way for children to learn about the world. Also, it is a good way for the family to bond together. So, once a month, take your family out on a picnic, and during the holiday, visit fun places for kids.
- Read a book together
As a family, picking a book and reading it together can be a nice way to spend quality time, and by reading together, you are helping your children to expand their knowledge and creativity. The best way to do it is to pick a good book, read it together – and discuss lessons from the book.
The bonus of reading with your children is that they would grow up to take reading as a habit, and this would translate to good grades in school.
- Exercise together
Like reading together, exercising together comes with a bonus. Aside from being a way to spend quality time together as a family, it helps keep the family fit and healthy. It is also fun. You and your family members can either use a local gym or workout from home if you have the equipment.
To sum up, no matter how busy you are, you must endeavour to spend quality time with your family. Make it part of your schedule, for it is one of the ways to show how much you love your family.
