Slow Down, Get Your Family Back

Do you spend your weekends driving from activity to activity? Are your family dinners hostage to soccer, or dance, or football, or some other kind of practice? Do you feel you are running so fast you don't have time to slow down and enjoy your family?

If so, you are not alone! It turns out, there is such a thing as a 'slow family movement.' Yes, a few days ago the USA Today published an article titled 'Slow family' movement focuses on fewer outside activities. The group promotes just that, slowing down as a family and take the time to 'just be' and enjoy your family more. It's a good piece and it made reflect on this important issues.

When we as parents feel like we have to enroll our kids into every activity under the sun, it doesn't take much to fall into hyper activity mode. For families with more than two or three children, just one activity per child can mean hectic weekends and weeknights. So how do we manage?

• First, give up the idea that kids 'need' to be enrolled in extracurricular activities. What happened to unstructured just-chill time? Challenge the notion that structured activities are a need. Think about what children really need in the long run. Do they need another trophy or a relationship with mom, dad, siblings? 
• Second, be choosy as to what you will and will not do and set the expectation with the children. It may be that they only participate in one activity per year. Or maybe you decide not to overlap more than a certain number of activities during any given time. 
• Third, schedule down time. Just like dating your wife requires scheduling, the same might be true of spending 'slow time' with the family when all can just be together and be spontaneous.
• Fourth, create traditions that promote togetherness such as family home evening, family dinner, night-time rituals as you put kids to bed, etc.

Life is already complicated as it. We often add to that complexity. Whatever you do to slow down, at the very least, let us turn off the phone, the TV, and other distractions to see, hear, and enjoy our family members a little more each day.

As children grow older and become more independent, it is increasingly difficult to spend downtime as a family. That's why creating early habits and traditions of spending family down time is critical to long-term healthy family relationships they can cherish for years to come.

So, what do you do or what ideas do you have for family down time? I'd love to hear from you!!

Photo by freedigitalphotos.net