Today I have a great guest post for you all from Holly Nordenberg of Im With Holly. Holly is a professional parenting and life coach from the US and is helping parents to parent with purpose. Her website is packed full of parenting tips and tricks, helpful printables to keep you organised and your family motivated, meal plans to help save you time and the 15 day Connected Parent Challenge (which I’ve just downloaded!) Today she is going to give you 5 easy changes you can implement to strengthen family ties.
How to Strengthen Family Ties
Are you ready to solidify your family bond? Do you want to foster a strong connection within your home? It all starts with daily or weekly habits. By incorporating small habits you can make long-term changes to your family unit. Here are 5 things you can start doing this week to strengthen your family.
Reduce Tech Time
Do you pick up your phone every time you hear a buzz? Have you ever checked your email, and before you know it, 45 minutes have passed? Our modern tech is addictive. It’s deliberately designed to make you lose track of time. The social media moguls want you to scroll past ads for hours.
And it’s working.
The average American average of 17 hours a day in front of a screen. That’s virtually every waking minute of your day! The data on kids isn’t much better; they spend 4 to 9 hours a day gawking at a screen.
The real tragedy here is the opportunity cost of spending hours in front of a screen. If you’re scrolling through Facebook or binge watching the latest Netflix series, you’re not spending time with your family. And for kids, time is love.
You’re not going to eliminate screens all together, but you can be deliberate about your tech time. Research the issues with screen time so kids are aware of the dangers. Decide how much screen time makes sense for your family members. Discuss it together! Buy-in is important for this to impact your family bond. Then determine how to hold yourselves (and each other) accountable, so you don’t fall into the mindless scroll trap.
When you’re intentional about how you’re spending your time, you’ll notice a huge difference in your family bond.
Get Outside Daily
Nature is therapeutic. And more importantly, it offers a plethora of opportunities for bonding. Seeing new sights, hearing new sounds, smelling fresh, fragrant flowers, and experiencing the cool breeze together can bring family closer. Nature offers educational opportunities as well! You can learn about plants, animals, the impact of glacial erosion, and so much more.
The benefits of getting outside with your family cannot be understated. But there’s also benefits for each individual. It can help your kids perform better in school, improve physical fitness, and reduce mental health risks, just to name a few. As a parenting coach, I strongly encourage clients to prioritize outdoor time because there are so many impactful benefits.
A long hike in the woods or a bike ride through the park are great options. But it doesn’t have to be a huge time commitment every day. Even a simple walk around the block after dinner can provide these amazing benefits. My kids love to play catch in the front yard, or color with sidewalk chalk in the driveway. Start small and set a goal of 10 to 15 minutes outside each day!
Even young babies benefit from the outdoors, so don’t be afraid to put the baby in a wrap or push a stroller down the street to get your time outside.
And don’t avoid outdoor time if the weather isn’t perfect! Jumping in puddles together can create life-long happy memories for your kids.
Here are a few tips on how to enjoy spending time outdoors in nature
Eat One Meal Together Every Day
When kids enroll in extra curricular activities or form a tight bond with friends, you’ll probably see less of your kids. They’ll be on-the-go constantly. A great way to strengthen your family during this chaotic time of childhood is to have a consistent routine or tradition around a meal. For most families this is dinner time, but you could make breakfast the family meal of the day.
Gather around the table, turn off all the screens (no phones, TV, or tablets allowed!), and truly engage for the 10 or 15 minutes it takes to eat your meal. Ask your kids specific questions to get them talking! Tell stories (about recent events or about your past). Offer encouragement if your kids have a big event coming up.
It’s ok if you don’t like to cook. Family meals can be pizza delivery, chinese take-out, or you can rotate cooking responsibility. Commit to having dinner together every night for a week. You will probably be surprised by the benefits of sharing a family meal.
Assign Everyone Chores
A family is a team. Family lives in a common space and they must work together to maintain the team facilities (the home, the car, etc).
Every member needs to contribute. And more importantly, they should contribute for the sake of being on the team! Kids benefit from having a tidy home, a well stocked fridge, nice clothes, etc. Offering other rewards or allowance for participating in family chores will most likely lead to a “what’s in it for me” attitude, and will not instill the long-term work ethic needed for kids to be successful once they fly the coop.
It’s best to start chores, or family contributions, at a young age. But it’s possible to start them any time! Make your kid’s responsible for various aspects of the home (like doing the dishes every night, completing their own laundry, or washing the car once a week). Offer the appropriate training (you don’t want a broken washer!), and make them accountable.
Giving everyone in the family chores will create a sense of responsibility and appreciation. This leads to long-term respect for fellow family members. As a side-effect, siblings will experience a sense of comradery (and they will be able to commiserate with each other).
My favorite way to get kids to complete their chores is to use a “when/then” scenario. For example, “when your laundry is put away, then you can use your tablet”. Or “when you finish mowing the lawn, then you can go to the football game with your friends.”
Pro tip: Use the word “when” and not the word “if”. Using “if” implies that it’s optional. If you use the word “when”, it implies that it’s expected to be done, it’s just a matter of timing.
Have a Weekly Family Meeting
I took a parenting course when I first became a mom, and one of the tools they strongly suggested was holding a weekly family meeting.
I was skeptical, “A family meeting? Really?”
I spent my whole workday in meetings. I did not want to add one more meeting to my life. And what kind of agenda was I going to have that would matter to my baby? Honestly, it seemed silly to me.
I actively avoided implementing this tool, even though the program strongly encouraged it.
Then, as my baby became a little more independent, I realized that I was using dinner time to air my grievances with my family members. Dinner time should be for connecting. We should talk, and laugh and tell jokes.
But I had turned dinner time into work. I remember telling my oldest (a toddler at the time) that she really needed to pick up her books when she was done “reading” and that she needed to put her bath toys back in the basket. And explaining to my husband exactly which bowls were microwave-safe. This is not how I wanted to spend dinner time.
So, I planned my first family meeting. The agenda was simple: what’s coming up next week, things we need to work on (like not putting the pink plastic bowls in the microwave), and things we loved about the week before.
It felt awkward at first, but after a few meetings, something beautiful happened. Dinner time turned into a fun bonding time. We started playing “I Spy” and telling knock-knock jokes.
And our family meeting turned into bonding time too! It was a consistent opportunity to talk about “the plan” for the week (which is hugely beneficial for toddlers who like to know what’s coming next), an opportunity to set goals and make adjustments to things that weren’t working.
Over time (as kids have grown) we’ve added fun things like having a fun snack, sharing appreciations, and sometimes even playing a quick game as a family.
So find a time that works every week, and pencil in a quick family meeting. Set a small agenda at first to get into the habit, and see where it takes you! It will probably be weird at first. But if you’re consistent, you’ll definitely discover the benefits of being on the same page with your family members.
Conclusion
Family bonding happens every day. If you are intentional about your time you can build in small daily habits to form lasting connections with your family members. Here are 5 things you can do this week to strengthen your family:
- Reduce Tech Time
- Get Outside Daily
- Eat One Meal a Day Together
- Assign Chores
- Have a Family Meeting
Looking for more ways to strengthen your family? Consider hiring a parenting coach to help you along your parenting journey.
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