peggy's page of Family Activities

birdhouse.gif (5585 bytes) Family Activities
Here are some ideas to nurture family relationships, and build strong, happy and loving families: counting our blessings, family prayers, date nights, one-to-ones, family meetings, the family journal, the family bulletin board, family programs, the family newspaper, craft time, indoor games, nature activities and more to come. Some of these ideas are from my own experience, but a lot is also from other sources. Some ideas are specifically for Christians, but many are helpful for everyone. Try to see which ones you can adapt in your particular way, in your own families. Remember, we can make every day a special day for our loved ones!

Gratefulness / Counting our blessings
With all of life's challenges and trials, we can sometimes forget that we actually have much to be grateful for. Grateful people are happy people. Let's make a habit of counting our blessings everyday and let's pass this on to our children.

There are various ways which can help us to remember to be grateful. We can have a journal where we write down a certain number of blessings each day. Or we can have a certain time together, like during dinner perhaps, when everyone shares whatever they are grateful for. This activity not only encourages gratefulness, but it also gives family members an opportunity to share with one another the events of the day, focusing on the positive in whatever situation they find themselves in.

Family Prayers
We can have family prayers in a variety of ways, whichever works best for our family. We can have quiet times of reflecting on the day's blessings or loud praising and singing, hopefully in tune.

Mealtime prayers are a good way to start a meal. Let's try to have at least one meal a day that we can have together as a family, perhaps dinner. We can either say traditional memorized prayers or say spontaneous prayers in our own words. We can take turns leading or say the memorized prayer all together. What's important is that, once again, we develop that attitude of gratefulness, not only for the food before us, and for whoever prepared it, but for whatever else happened during the day.

Blessing the children everyday is also a meaningful ritual. We can lay our hand on them and say a short prayer, or even just a simple "God bless you". In this meaningful ritual, we are entrusting our children into the Lord's care. Also, our children will be reminded that God is with them, even when we aren't.

Bedtime prayers can also be of the traditional, memorized kind, or of spontaneous prayers in the children's own words. A quiet time just before sleeping, when we can look back on the day just passed and be grateful for it's many blessings is a great way to end the day.

Date Nights
A great way to nurture our relationship as husband and wife is to have date nights (I suggest weekly). It need not be at night - morning or afternoon is fine. With all the responsibilities and activities that go with parenthood, it's important to plan out regular times together, without the kids. It is a time when you can discuss personal and family concerns, make plans, solve problems and just plain have fun together. Have a romantic dinner, just like in the old days, go on a picnic, do whatever you enjoy (you can take turns deciding what to do). What's important is that you make spending that time together a priority over other activities. It's a way of saying to each other, you're important to me and I want to spend time with you. Remember, our relationship as husband and wife needs our time and effort for it to grow strong and remain loving and united.

Sometimes it's not that easy to get away together without the kids. If you can't find a trustworthy babysitter to be with the kids, you can try working out a schedule with a group of other couples from your community. You leave them your kids while you're out on your date, while you watch their kids when they're out on theirs.

If it's really impossible to get away on a certain week, be creative. How about a stay- at- home date - getting all dressed up and having a candlelight dinner after all the kids are in bed?

One-to-Ones
It is also important to spend time with our children one to one. Plan out regular times when you can put all your attention on one kid at a time. If you have a lot of kids, perhaps Mommy can take out each girl and Daddy take out each boy. Or both parents can come along or whatever you find is best for your child.

Have your child decide what he would like to do and don't just let him tag along with you while you do your shopping or errands. Spend the time listening to your child and get to know her a little more. Let this be a time when she can have you all to herself, a time she can enjoy with you, the stuff happy childhood memories are made of. Learn to communicate in such a way that will help your child learn to express himself. Say "Tell me about..." instead of "How was..." to avoid single word answers like "Fine".

Start out having these one-to-one times together with your children when they are still young so that when they get to the more challenging teen years it will be easier for you to communicate with them.

The Family Meeting
Just like any organization or team, the family can benefit from having regular meetings together. Schedule a family meeting when everyone is free and not in a rush to do something else. Try to have one at least once a week. This is a time when everyone can have their say. It is a time to plan family activities, agree on chores, acknowledge the good things and discuss how to improve the not so good things. It is a time to acknowledge good test grades, give thanks for favors done and tell stories about the week just passed. It is a time to discuss how to schedule study times and sharing the computer, anything which will help build a strong and happy family.

The family meeting should be something the family looks forward to, so try to keep it light and fun. We can start out by telling funny anecdotes or jokes.

The Family Journal / Scrapbook
There are countless things that happen in a family's life that would be forgotten without a family journal or scrapbook. When we take the time to make a journal or scrapbook, we will have a treasure for our family to keep and look over to remember little as well as big events in our family's history.

Each member of the family can write in the journal in their own handwriting. It will be fun to see how the kid's handwriting improves. The entries need not be long or it may get too difficult to keep up. Any little story, the baby's special words, funny anecdotes, little surprises, vacations memories, the first day of school, the first visit to the dentist, and prom night, are just some things we can include in the journal. Drawings, ticket stubs, postcards, travel souvenirs are some things to paste onto the scrapbook.

The Family Bulletin Board
Put up a family bulletin board in a place that everyone sees everyday. It can be used to display our kids' drawings or test papers, pictures, letters or cards the family has received, magazine or newspaper clippings we want to share with each other, activity or chore schedules, reminders and whatever else is interesting and useful to the family. Go through the board's contents regularly and decide which go into the trash bin, which go into the family scrapbook, or which stay on the board.

Family Programs
When we were kids, we had family programs with songs, dances and skits. We would practice and prepare our costumes for our appreciative audience of two (Mommy and Daddy). Not only did they enjoy our presentations, but as children we also learned cooperation and working together (obeying whatever the designated director says) and patience (for the director, when the others wouldn't cooperate).

Family Newspaper
We didn't need a computer to make our family newspaper when we were kids. We made everything by hand. And we didn't need any big events to report about. Anything about any family member would do. There was even a time when the headline was about one of us buying a new umbrella! It may seem silly but those family newspapers were fun to make for us, fun to read for our parents, and family treasures now. We included news, comics, and advertisements and whatever else we could think of.

When Christmas time comes, everyone can help make a family newsletter to send together with our usual personalized cards and gifts. If we look through the past year's family newspapers and scrapbook, it's easier to remember the highlights we want to share about.

Craft Time
One great way to spend time together as a family is to have a time of making crafts together. Even very young children can join in a lot of crafts. Try making gifts, greeting cards, decorations and gift wrappers for Christmas. Decorate Easter eggs. Make decorations for an upcoming birthday. Visit my crafts page for ideas on Play Clay and Decorative Dough, Stencilling, Scherenschnitte, Crayon Resist, Easter Eggs, Potato stamping, Stationery items, Home and Garden Accessories, Wearable Crafts, Toys, Kitchen Crafts, Gifts and Celebration Decoations and Accessories.

Indoor Games
There are many games which we can play together as a family. Let's try to schedule a regular time for fun. My family's favorites are the traditional Old Maid, Crazy Eights and Bluff card games and grandchildren and grandparents can all join in. Some other games we enjoyed were pictionary, dictionary, etc.

Nature Activities
The activities we plan to do together as a family need not be expensive. Make use of the beauty of nature for activities that are enjoyable as well as educational. Stargazing, cloud watching, kite flying, gardening and birdwatching are just some of the many things we can do. Learn the name of the constellations, cloud formations and birds. Make your own kites. Younger children will enjoy camping in your own backyard.

Sports sailboat.gif (18382 bytes)
Even if you are not very good in sports (like me), you can still have a good time with the family in sports activities. My Dad loves sailing (see his Island Boats web site) and we love going to the beach.

My daughter (who's 9 years old) has just started learning how to play badminton and we try to play at least once a week (with her uncle and aunties). Basketball, soccer, baseball are just some games you can try out as a family. Running and cycling are also good if you have a nice, safe place to do it.

Support a Good Cause
When our children are older, we can decide on a good cause to support as a family. In my family, we can joined a Habitat project, building houses for less fortunate people. We laid cement blocks, hammered wooden trusses, carried sand and a lot more. Quite a tiring experience, but also a very fulfilling and joyful one. If Mom and Dad are not strong enough to do actual construction work, they can help with support services. (My Dad did some plumbing work while Mom the baby sitter for the kids.)

Another project we participated in was the International Coastal Clean-up. We spent a morning in the beach filling garbage bags with all sorts of rubbish that had washed up on shore. We had to tabulate how many pieces of the different kinds of trash we found and submit our tabulation to the organizing committee. My Dad (at 71 years) was an enthusiastic recruit. A very educational and worthwhile experience for all of us.

There are countless things we can do as a family to help make the world a better place. Not only will activities like this help our family relationships grow closer, all of us also become better persons as we do something for others, for our country, for the environment.