Family Time Activities

 Why not put aside a time when everything is switched off and have some family time activities. This will improves family life and has many benefits. It could be just an hour or two a week or a daily event. Here are some family time ideas for you to try.

Everything goes better with food, so why not make that the focus of the get together. A family meal is also a rarity these days. Children grow up so fast and are off on their own, going out with friends, and when both parents work, it can be weeks before a family gets to sit down together for a family meal. But here is a tradition, where no matter what happens, the whole family is gathered, at least once a week around the table. The advantage of tasting some fresh home made cooking goes without saying.

Once the family is seated around the table, inevitably communication opens up. Kids may talk more to their friends than they do to their parents, but with a regular family meal, at least once a week; you have the opportunity to ask "how was your week?"

You can prohibit electrical gadgets, the kids are finally disconnected from the PSP, Play station, ICQ, SMS, Internet, MP4 and whatever other machine they are hooked on. No one can slip into their room and plug themselves into their own little world. For the allotted time, the family faces each other and crates it's own family time entertainment. Even Dad can't check his e-mails, or take that important call from work on his cell phone.

The book culture, in a world of electronic solutions, seems to be dying. Without the electronic distractions, let this also be a time for reading. Don't sit them down with Moby Dick, but start out by providing comics, or short books, magazines and newspapers. Leave them on the coffee table and soon enough someone will take an interest. These written forms are more likely to spark off a conversation if everyone is gathered together on the porch or curled up on the sofa.

Do you remember in your youth when the family would gather in the evenings for family time activities or to play monopoly or perhaps do a puzzle? Well during family time kids tend to play these games out of lack of choice as there are no electronic distractions. Give them family time ideas, and make suggestions, perhaps charades.

No couch potatoes either, the family can get out into the sunshine and throw a football around together outside, go for a walk or do some other family time activity.

I know it sounds like it would be impossible to enforce, but try it. At first the kids will be grumpy and say they are just going to sleep or something, but after a few "family times" when they see you are serious, they will start to participate, and take an interest in the options available to them.