This post covers six practical tips on how to keep your kids excited for family time. One thing that seems to be slipping away for a lot of families is quality time together. Whether you’re a full-time mom or use a daycare service, you know quality time is everything. Usually, vacations and dinner time are when the whole household comes together, but is that really enough? Some families quickly eat, talk about their day, and then the whole household separates again. Is this genuinely ideal?
As a parent, you’re obviously going to want to create fun and special memories, and not every memory needs to be extravagant such as a fancy vacation. Sometimes, some of the greatest memories happen to take place right at home. So, if you want to ensure that your little ones can get excited for a fun time, keep reading for practical tips on what you can do!
6 Tips on How To Keep Your Kids Excited for Family Time
1. Always Make it a Priority
Ideally, if you start out while they’re young, they will also prioritize this whenever your family has this special time together. For instance, you can have Christmas movies for kids or any favorite movie on Friday nights together. Just make sure everyone sits together and enjoys this.
It can be difficult to balance work, kids’ activities, and everyone’s individual hobbies, but prioritizing it ensures you find the time to bond with your family. Setting aside time to eat dinner together several nights a week or going for a family bike ride once a week can be a good start.
Regular family time will help keep your children excited about the time with you and make it easier to establish lasting relationships. Try to avoid distractions like phones, social media, or TV during this time.
Set the rules that everyone must put down their devices for this time. This will help everyone to focus on each other and create a memorable experience. Kids (especially teens) might not like that they have to give up their devices during this time, but this will be beneficial in the long term.
2. Consider Incorporating Games
Having family games night once or twice a week can greatly impact family relationships. Playing games together teaches kids how to take turns and stay focused. It also teaches them how to win and lose gracefully. Generally speaking, kids are less likely to feel bored or even tempted to look at their phones if games are involved.
3. There’s Nothing Wrong with Competition
Children love competition, plus it’s needed anyways for development. Ideally, try to give a friendly nudge toward activities that get people going. Plus, when it comes to the competitive spirit, it’s the best way to really get a person synced in. While obviously, this means games need to be involved, whether it’s a board game or a video game, these can be pretty fun. In general, try not to constantly have only games for family time, as this can get stale pretty quickly.
4. Throw Some Education Into It
In a day and age where children are exposed to so much more media than parents of previous generations, family time provides an opportunity to talk about media content and encourage kids to learn. You might want to consider making it educational from time to time. This could be going to a museum or zoo, but it can be at home. Think about teaching them how to cook or watching documentaries together. You don’t want every time to be a major lesson, but tidbits here and there will help massively.
5. It Needs to Be Fun
It can be easy to think of family time as boring or tedious, but with some creativity, you can make it fun for the whole family. Play games that let kids chase, wrestle and roll around. This kind of rough-and-tumble play helps kids learn to be strong and safe without hurting each other. Spending quality time together can be a great way to help kids with their schoolwork too.
You can quiz them on spelling words or math facts, talk to them about their homework assignments, and even work with them on research projects for papers and presentations. Ultimately, you don’t want to force your kids to participate; the goal is to let them have fun and feel open and excited to join this. So it has to be fun, including changing and shaping things as your kid ages.
6. Try to Ditch the Device
The whole point is to spend time together, not with your devices. In these modern times, we are always attached to our devices, so it’s essential to have some time when you’re not. Family time should be fun and memorable, so kids want to be involved. It’s not enough to merely schedule special activities around birthdays and holidays. Try to plan a few special outings each month, or create your own family traditions. These traditions should have a phone in hand, either. Having a tech-time-out plan is so important; you need to really know your family, and honestly, this is the best way to go about it.
Final Thoughts
We hope these six tips on how to keep your kids excited for family time have been insightful and that you will give them a try to see if it works for your family dynamic. Kids grow up so fast, so it’s worth making the most of the time we have with them.