Spending Time with Your Children: Family Day, A Bonding Tradition

• Pick a day: We picked Sunday. A day is really a perfect amount of time to fulfill each person's special activity. If you find a whole day is too hard on your schedules, then an evening could work too. For example, a Friday family game night might be fun or a Saturday pizza and a movie could work. Or expand on a time you already have in your schedule like church and breakfast.



• Wake up together: When our children were young, they usually made their way into our bed so we woke up cuddling, wrestling, or playing a guessing game. Now that they are older, we meet on the couch for something hot to drink, chat or tell jokes then head for the breakfast table.



• Breakfast Time: Every holiday has a feast. Our feast is at Family Day breakfast. Everybody has a task as we all work hard to make the meal into an event. My son learned how to make coffee (with supervision) by the time he was four and my daughter makes her "famous" pancakes. We do not hold back at this meal. Our breakfast is filled with goodies.



• Family Day Journal: Although we spent years writing a list of activities on a scrap piece of paper, one Family Day I suggested we write our lists in a journal. From that point forward, after breakfast we bring out our Family Day Journal and take turns writing our special list. We even added a page of family news. We look back fondly on our list every so often remembering our past Family Days.



• Family Day Activities: In our family, we come up with eight Family Day activities. Because there are four of us, we each get two choices. The writer gets to pick who is first, second, and third. The writer shares his/her pick last. Ideas will vary with your children's age. My son tended to pick hide-n-seek when he was younger whereas my daughter tended to pick an art project. Now, they pick movies, games, or shopping. No matter the choice, we all must participate. Some suggestions are hide-n-seek, playing a board game at a coffee shop, planting a vegetable garden, baking cookies, making paper dolls, playing dolls, building a city with blocks, making up a scary story, going for ice cream, renting movies at home or going to a movie, painting each other's portrait on canvas place mats, decorating bird houses, making Christmas gifts, carving pumpkins, rock climbing, hosting an International Ping-Pong Invitational, putting together puzzles, playing house, playing I-spy with a special shell we found at the beach on our last Family Day, playing bingo, going to visit family, adventuring out to a museum, telling tall tales, making clay models, and so much more. The list is prioritized in terms of time-line or we'll put the ideas in a basket and draw. Although we parents do have some veto power (i.e. money or time constraints), generally anything the kids pick is accepted.



• Commitment: We are committed to Family Day every week, however, there are always some exceptions. For instance, if I am going on a training weekend or my husband has a conflicting job, Family Day will be carried on by the parent at home or we will reschedule it in advance to Saturday. Our friends and family know that we are not available on Sunday because we are focusing on each other. After almost 10 years, I can say that Family Day was the best thing we ever established in our little clan.

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