A united family is a strong family. A strong family is a happy family!
We all want to have happy family experiences, have fun together and build strong loving bonds. Raising children should be an enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, a lot of parents spend their days breaking up sibling fights, sending kids to time-outs, and constantly battling family rules.
Here are some useful ways to connect tight as a happy family:
1. Do household chores together
Most parents of young children have an enormous amount of work and household responsibilities to be completed on a daily basis. If you are spending a great deal of time rushing from one mundane task to another, and feel like you never have enough time to relax or spend meaningful moments with your family, it’s time to flip the script.
Commit to creating time to enjoy yourself and your happy family. Make it a priority. When you’re with your children at home, try relaxing your approach to spending time with them. Most importantly, that includes involving the kids in managing household affairs, rather than working around them.
Delegate wherever possible, and involve your family in completing household chores. Positive reinforcement is helpful here, as it can help shape new group behaviours. Try allocating everyone in the family a chore to be completed simultaneously – someone wipes the benches, someone else sweeps the floor, and another family member takes out the recycling. After the tasks are complete reward the family with a shared activity that everyone will enjoy, like a movie night.
You can emulate your kids’ enthusiasm for chores by lessening your focus on how long a task may take or how efficiently it has to be done. Instead, see this as an invaluable opportunity for happy family togetherness time.
2. Focus on small, cherished moments rather than eventful outings
Connecting with your family members is about quality time: play with your baby and make silly faces that send her into fits of giggles; help your toddler to make shapes in his Play-Doh; or sit down with your teenager and watch a few funny YouTube compilation videos together. Just be sure to find activities that you’ll both enjoy; you’ll be amazed at how rewarding and beneficial even just a few minutes together can feel. This will create a happy family bond.
3. Eat together as a happy family
There is an incredibly strong evidence base for the positive impact that shared family meals have on family connectedness and resilience. Studies show that sharing meals with your family can have long-term psychological, emotional, physical and academic benefits.
Mealtime is also an invaluable opportunity to talk to other family members. Regular dinner conversations foster more open communication between parents and children, which can have lifelong benefits for all family members in terms of intimacy, trust, and a sense of connectedness to the family unit.
4. Take the time to really listen
Most of the time, children only need a few minutes of your undivided attention, but many parents are often too caught up in other matters to really listen to what their children have to say.
When your child comes to you excited to talk about the drawing they made at preschool or the bug that they found in the yard, you should really take the time to listen and show interest by asking further questions. Encouraging conversation on children’s terms creates space for them to share their lives, thoughts and feelings with you. This sense of trust and openness in childhood also sets a precedent for their adult relationships.
5. Remember your sense of humour!
Having a sense of humour when things don’t turn out as planned can relieve tension and stress, and help a family to relax and avoid conflict by not taking themselves too seriously.
A collective ‘family humour style’ can deepen a sense of connection, and belonging within the family unit. It may not feel too funny in the moment, running late for a birthday party with grumpy kids in tow! Yet the ability to laugh off stressful moments – especially by sharing a family joke – is a superbly effective coping strategy.
Read also: 8 Healthy Benefits Of Eating Together As A Family
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