| Make time for your family |
 Research done during National Family Week last year seems to show that many of us want to spend more time with our families. Over 3,000 parents and children took part in the survey, with 62 per cent of children saying they spend less than 45 minutes a day doing things as a family – that’s less than five hours a week, including weekends. When it comes to leisure, only five per cent of families say they play sports together, three per cent say they read together, and just two per cent of parents say they help their children with homework. More than a quarter of all children (28 per cent) and half of all parents (55 per cent) say they want to spend more time with their family. Time pressure The figures indicate the time pressure many families face, but there are some positives to draw from the report. Many families want to spend time together; they just find that modern life thwarts them in their attempts. Many parents recognise it would be good to spend more quality time with their children. The question is, “How can we make time?” One trick is to treat all your times together as “together time”. Meal times are a good example of this – you could try to extend your meal times with a short family game afterwards. There are several novel and fun card games available which can be easily played at the dinner table. Or if your children are older, just delay the washing up and take time to sit around and chat over a cup of coffee. Car journeys are another everyday occurrence you can turn into a special time. Ban the iPods and the Nintendo DS from the back seat, and play a game like “Who Am I?” or “Number Plate Bingo”. Encourage your children to make up new games too. One reason why parents and children don’t see each other as much as they could is simply because of the huge array of activities that many children do. It can be easy to run a parental taxi service, shuttling children from judo to football to piano lesson to competitive origami, and so on. Family Night Can you rearrange those activities to keep one night clear every week to have a Family Night? Make a commitment to always leave work on time that night, and gather the family together. Ideas don’t have to be expensive – in fact, you can have a competition to see who can come up with the best free activity. Family Night is just one way you can create some time for your family. (We often recommend married couples try to set apart another night as a ‘date night’ for just the two of them – if two nights is too much, how about alternating date nights with family nights every other week?) The key to spending more time with our families is making the deliberate decision to take the opportunities that come along – to turn time together into ‘together time’. By spending time with our families we can build stronger relationships with our children, grow closer together as a family, and create memories that can be treasured for a lifetime. And that’s got to be worth making time! © Care for the Family 2010. Reproduced with permission. For more information about the work of Care for the Family visit www.careforthefamily.org.uk or call (029) 20810800. |
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