Family recreation and doing things together as a family is such an important part of keeping families together. Families can do things together, but is the whole family enjoying the activity? Sometimes, it's hard to find something that the whole family enjoys. Sometimes, not everyone is going to love the activity, but most of the time, they do enjoy being able to do something with the rest of their family.
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| My aunt Tisha and I. I went with her every year for Black Friday Shopping since she and my uncle got together. I was really sad that I missed going with them a year and a half ago. Tisha passed away last year on mother's day. I miss her so much!!! |
Research has shown that family satisfaction with current levels of leisure involvement is a strong predictor of overall satisfaction with family life, even when accounting for income, marital status, age, and history of divorce. When we are doing things that include our whole family, we are more likely to stick together and push through hard times.
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| My younger brothers, my parents and I in front of the Idaho Falls Temple. This is the temple that my grandparents got married in. It was wonderful to see and learn more about the place where a part of our family history began. |
Another set of research shows that direct positive relationships between family leisure involvement and levels of family functioning. Families who regularly engage in core leisure activities "depicted by common everyday, low-cost, relatively accessible, and often home-based activities that many families do frequently"(Zabriskie & McCormick 2003) such as playing board games or playing catch in the yard, have higher levels of family cohesiveness than those families who do not regularly engage in such activities. Families who participate in balanced leisure activities, "depicted through activities that are generally less common, less frequent, more out of the ordinary, and usually not home based thus providing novel experiences" (Zabriskie & McCormick 2003), such as going to disneyland or on a cruise, have been found to have higher levels of adaptability than families who do not engage in such activities.
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| On the farm. We were lighting fireworks off to celebrate birthdays and the Fourth of July. |
Many family traditions and rituals, such as religious rituals, birthdays, or Christmas, may be labor-intensive for some members of the family. But even though such rituals may be challenging, none were noted for having negative influences. Familial benefits of religious rituals included strengthened relationships, more family togetherness and unity, increased communication, less contention, more kindness, and better parenting. the effort to create these experiences, although difficult, appears to hold meaningful rewards.
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| At my Uncle and Aunt's wedding. We had three generations here. It was so much fun to have my great-aunts there celebrating with the rest of us. |
My family has had lots of different recreational activities that we do. We have my siblings over for dinner, we play lots of different games together, we work together to get things done, we go swimming together and go bowling with each other in the summer time, we sell firework and Christmas trees together, and lots of other things. Over the past few years, we have been getting closer and closer to each other. We no longer fight over the things that we want to do with one another, but instead we compromise between what is going to be the most available.
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| The day that my youngest brother came home from scout camp. My niece and nephew were so happy and excited to have their uncle Sam home with them. |
I'm really grateful for the time that I have had with my family. The closeness that we now have, is something that I don't ever want to give up. It means so much to me to have a close relationship with my amazing family members. I think that as some of our family members have passed away, we will each start having a whole new relationship with those who are still here on this earth.
I think that some of the challenges for trying to plan a family activity is schedules. Whenever I have time to do something with my family members, they already have things planned. But every time they have time, I have homework that I am doing. It is often a challenge to find a good place in all of our busy schedules to have family time. I think that a lot of families get together when somebody is having a baby, when somebody is getting married, or when somebody has passed away. At least, this is the case with my family. It is a great blessing to be able to celebrate and enjoy eachother's company.
P.S.
Here are a list of things that my family loves to do together, that you might like to try with yours:
- Bike rides
- Watching t.v.
- Going for walks
- Taking pictures
- Swimming
- Shopping
- Wrestling
- Lighting Fireworks
- Gardening
- Listen to music and go for long car rides
- Reading books
- Play any kind of ball
- Play card games
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