Are You Spending Enough Quality Time With Your Family?

A recent study shows that most people these days don’t spend enough quality time with their family to create a strong and healthy relationship with their spouse, children, or parents. Spending quality family time in this busy day and age is a challenge for many. A new survey revealed that average American families are enjoying just 37 minutes of “quality time” together as a family on a regular weekdays. That gets little better at 2 hours and 40 minutes on weekend days.

While American adults spend nearly 3 hours a day on social media, spending just 37 minutes a day with family sounds pretty disheartening. Due to lack of family time together, families are drifting apart, growing impatient with each other, seeking comfort and support from the wrong people, and eventually, homes are being broken.

You need to spend time with your spouse and children to strengthen your bonds. In fact, research shows that the higher the frequency of shared time, the better the marital stability and happiness.

Importance of Spending Family Time:

“At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, a parent.” – Barbara Bush

Spending quality family time plays a very important role in bringing the whole family closer to each other. Time spent with family is probably the biggest and wisest investment one can make in building a happy family life. It strengthens family bonds that will also get you through the tough times. It helps create a sense of belonging and security, where you can share your dreams, ideas, values, beliefs, and your fears and vulnerabilities as well.

Even though most of us are caught up in our hectic daily schedules, we all acknowledge that spending quality time with family is still the best way we can show love and care to our loved ones and make them feel that our families are important.

Research has found that quality family time is a significant part of the human developmental process, and an important force in developing healthy relationships between husband and wife and between parents and children.

Family bonding is an essential part of a healthy family that improves communication, interaction, and relationships between the members.

The beauty of a family is that it is a group of people with different personalities who are connected with each other, and share good as well as bad times together.

A few of the benefits of spending quality time with family are that nobody knows you like your own family, and they can be a great source of comfort, support, and safety for you or your loved ones. Only when you spend time with them, you will know how unique but caring each one is. It will also help in developing tolerance towards each other’s shortcomings and focusing on their positive traits.

Every day work-life balance, family responsibilities, personal challenges – all can be very hectic and stressful. However, spending time with your family/loved ones acts as a stress-buster. Having a support system to discuss one’s stress and issues substantially reduces the pressure and improves your emotional well-being.

By spending quality time with family, a very special relationship of trust and intimacy develops that helps build a healthy loving family, creates memories, and makes children feel loved and appreciated. Beyond that, spending time together as a family helps build self esteem, combat stress, and curb destructive behaviors (like substance abuse) according to recent studies.

Creative and Fun Ways to Spend Time Together to Strengthen Family Bonds:

Any time spent together as a family is better than not spending time at all. But the most effective time together is meaningful quality time. This means time without distractions like TV, smartphones or chores, and taking part in an activity that more than one person will enjoy.

We often think that it is all about quantity when it comes to the time we spend with our loved ones, whereas it is the quality time that we need to give to our spouses, parents, and children. Your kids care less about the hours you spend with them, than how you spend your time with them.

Here are some creative ideas or tips to establishing a fun, frequent and meaningful family time on a regular basis to strengthen your relationship with your family:

Have Dinner Together:

This is something that is a priority in our home. I can’t tell you enough how important it is for a family to have meals together in order to connect with each other without any distractions. Dinners are often a time when the entire family gets together. So for many families, dinner time could be the only time of the day when they can actually spend some quality time together as a family.

To make the family dinner more exciting, you can prepare the meal together as a family during weekends. Spending time in the kitchen with your family creates beautiful memories that last a lifetime.

Also, research shows that children who eat meals with their families are healthy and perform well in schools. So, sit down as a family as often as possible to eat a meal and discuss your day and share stories.

Sit Together and Have a Conversation:

Make it a point to spend just half an hour with all your family members – at least 2/3 times a week.

Sit together comfortably in your family room or living room without the distractions of TV or cell phones, and talk with each other just about anything that can involve your whole family in it. The goal is to show genuine interest in each other while having some fun together.

Share a Common Interest:

Find a hobby or some activities that you all can enjoy together.

It could be gardening, taking morning or evening walks, playing cards, games or sports, or decluttering and organizing your home. You will build a stronger family unit by spending more time together in whatever way you can.

Read Together:

Reading books with your family is a great way for the family to bond. Reading to your children or even companionably reading books together for half an hour each night is a great way to spend time together.

If your kids are younger, you can consider reading to them. If they can read by themselves, you can take the opportunity to read some books, too. Choosing books to read and discussing them are great ways to share ideas and values with your children.

Set aside family reading time where you read books either individually or collectively. This idea requires you to visit the local library/bookstore often to have a constant supply of books. Apart from strengthening family bonds, visiting library and reading together create a healthy reading culture among family members.

A Day Out or Picnic:

Although vacations are a good way to bond with your family, they are expensive and time-consuming. Not many families can manage money or time to go for vacations whenever they need or desire it. Therefore, outings and picnics become the next available option for families to enjoy a day out and bond.

Your family can plan for outings in the park where you all share a meal and play games and spend quality time together. Keep aside your phones and give your undivided attention to each other.

Watch a Family-friendly TV show or a Movie Together:

Yes, watching TV does count as quality family time when you all enjoy watching your favorite TV show together. As long as it is intentional like a series that your whole family loves instead of just mindlessly watching anything that comes on TV, then you and your family can spend quality time together watching TV.

I personally recommend watching “Little House on the Prairie” with your family. This is our most favorite TV series that we all love and thoroughly enjoy. We also have learnt so much from Laura Ingalls’ stories, and it opens up new conversation topics for us at the dinner table.

Share Family Stories:

Find time to share stories about your family’s history and traditions. Dig out your old photo albums and look through them with your children. Tell them the stories behind those old pictures. This is a fun way to bond with children, ditching smartphones and other electronic devices for a while.

Gather your kids around and tell them instances from your childhood. They will love to know all about your childhood days. I can tell you about my kids. One of their most favorite family times is when I share stories about my childhood and other close relatives! They never seem to get bored of those stories.

Help Kids With Their Homework and Projects:

Another productive way to spend time with your kids is to help them in their schoolwork. You could be good at English and your partner at Math or science, so take turns tutoring them. This way, you will know about their studies and understand their academic progress. 

Checking their homework, getting involved in PTA, discussing your child’s progress with teachers, or helping them with their projects can become overwhelming at times, but it can also be a great way to spend some quality time together with your kids on a daily basis.

Learn Something New Together:

As a family, you all can start learning something new together. Maybe you could join a new language or art class with your kids.

Learning something new can open up new ways of communication and bring excitement and interest back into your conversations with your family members.

Going for Early Morning or Evening Walks:

This is another great way to spend some quality time together with your spouse or children. Walking is not only healthy for your body, but also it will improve your emotional well-being by bringing you and your family closer.

When you go for walks together, talk about something interesting or important with your family. Make it fun.

Connect With Your Teen:

Teenage years can be very tricky and challenging. Your teen needs your time and attention to feel loved and secured. Even if it is for 10 minutes a day, find a time which you can spend with your teen. It is important to maintain the rapport with them. Show some interest in what they are passionate about.

Also, take every opportunity to talk to your teenager whilst you are travelling together. When you are travelling with your teenager, there usually isn’t much else to do except talk. So seize the opportunity and get to know more about their lives.

Make it a point to bring your teenager to school or to any extra classes they may have. Doing this regularly allows you to spend more time together. Make travel time your together time!

Visit Places of Worship Together:

Visit a place of worship together on a regular basis. It is important to teach your kids the significance of prayer. Introduce them to the positive energy of daily prayers, and allow them to enjoy peace of mind that comes from the humble submission to their Creator.

Take time to pray together. It brings the whole family closer on a spiritual level and strengthens their emotional bond as well.

Final Words:

Spending quality time with family is important and the benefits you reap by doing so are too good to be ignored. Therefore, it should be a top priority. If you are not in a situation to spend much quality time with your family or loved ones due to other obligations or a very hectic schedule, then try your best to be there with them as often as possible.

Understand that the type of time you spend should vary according to what each family member needs and is most comfortable with. Pick 2/3 ways to spend time together regularly, and make sure that you and your family commit to these on a long-term basis.

You will build a stronger family unit by nurturing your relationships and spending more time together. Your family will stick together through rough times while finding comfort in each other. Remember – strong families are able to withstand setbacks and crisis with a positive attitude, shared values, and beliefs that help them cope with challenges, easily.

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