4 Steps to Strengthen Family Bonds & Improve Relationships
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Work and other life responsibilities can easily encumber spending quality time with your loved ones. You might find it hard to connect with them and make precious memories. But the effects of not spending time with your family and loved ones can be damaging; it can affect your relationship with your family.
On the contrary, making time for your parents, kids and siblings helps strengthen emotional ties and makes you feel at ease with your life. With time you feel confident about having a support system in the form of your family. Such a support system helps you overcome difficulties even when they seem impossible. But strengthening your bond with your family requires intention, dedication, and patience.
If you intend to improve your relationship with family, you find yourself making efforts to create a bonding. However, if you find it hard to decide what to do to strengthen your relationship with your family, here are a few steps to do that.
1. Plan to spend quality time
If something is available in excess does not mean it has an impact too. So, just because you are home all day does not mean you are spending quality time with your family. So focus not on the length of time you stay in the house or around your family but on how you spend that time.
Try some activities and hobbies that all family members can take part in. If you live in a state like Tennessee, which is brimming with natural beauty, taking your family on a short trip around the state can be a great bonding activity. For instance, plan a ranch vacation to disconnect from technology and get acquainted with nature.
The best thing about spending time on a Tennessee ranch is that they amalgamate all the fun activities, including exciting rides, live entertainment, miniature animals, and much more. So, take your family on a trip to unwind and relax near an abundant supply of nature.
If planning a vacation is not on your cards, other activities your family enjoys can get you great results too. This could be playing a game of carom, going on a picnic on the weekend, watching a movie together, making a dish, and so on. These activities may seem trivial, but their impact can be huge when it comes to making a bond with your family.
2. Eat with your family
We all know that sitting and eating together often gets tough because of busy routines and incongruent schedules. But sharing meals with your family has great benefits.
During the day, mealtime is when you can talk about your day, ask how it has been for others, get to know others in your family, share your struggles, laugh together, and provide support when needed. These are a few precious moments of the entire day; they create a sense of belonging and boost self-confidence and self-esteem.
The physical and mental health benefits of eating a meal together have been proven by studies too.
According to a study, families sharing three or more meals weekly are healthier. It is related to positive nutritional health in adolescents and children and helps them maintain positive weight and dietary patterns.
Also, they may be less likely to engage in disorganized eating habits. Apart from physical health, the mental health benefits of eating together as a family are substantial too. Eating together as a family reduces the risk of depression.
It is proved that if you want to develop good dietary habits in your kids, you should make an effort to arrange family meal times.
3. Have a game night
A lot goes into planning a family activity and making it a success. Gaming is one of those activities. Organizing a gaming night is a deliberate effort, but it can be a powerful one for making lasting memories and strengthening bonding.
Gaming is fun; if you dedicate one night during the week to gaming with your family, it can dispel dissatisfaction. Your kids and spouse might appreciate that you are sharing an activity you like with them. Hence, this may promote family bonding and closeness.
Scheduling gaming activities for your kids can be a great learning experience for them too. They can pick any part of it they like and reinforce their motor skills, problem-solving ability, communication, teamwork, etc.
Playing games is a creative way to teach your kids about the significance of losing and winning. You can teach your kids how to be gracious and modest after winning and strong and positive after losing. This can only happen when you have the habit of having a debriefing session after each game. This session can be spent exploring what your kids learned through the activity and the lessons they missed.
4. Make house chores a fun collective effort
House chores are a great fun way to teach your children some essential life skills. Washing dishes, ironing clothes, cleaning the house, etc., are some life skills that everyone in the home, regardless of gender, must know.
But knowing that house chores are seldom fun, you must be creative about devising ways to make them fun. You must think about how you can make doing chores better and which ones of your kids can do which activity better than the other.
You can start by deciding about a time during the day when the whole family will do the chores. Children often feel happy and excited when they see their parents doing things together and are more eager to participate in such an activity. Another way is to pretend chores as play to motivate your kids. Some parents make it look like a competition among their kids and reward the kids who complete a task in time.
Conclusion
Spending time with family has tremendous mental and physical health benefits. It makes you confident about your family members, develops a support system you can rely on, and help reduce depression too. Sharing meals with the family has great physical health benefits, powerful enough to motivate you to plan it.
*This article is based on personal suggestions and/or experiences and is for informational purposes only. This should not be used as professional advice. Please consult a professional where applicable.
