Bring back Family Night
March 5th, 2008 by Allison Worthington
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When I was growing up, we always had a designated night that was for spending time together as a family. No one was allowed to make any plans with other people and all family members had to be committed to staying home with one another & sharing time together. Our family night had consisted of a pizza or special treat & and good old family sitcoms on television. It was a special night that everyone looked forward to.
Now that I have my own family, I am starting to see the joys in having a designated time like this together. Although every night can be a family night, isn't it fun to have just one official night that you all can look forward to?
I challenge everyone to have a family night this week. Think of some things that you can do as a family that will bring you closer together. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
~ Play board games.
~ Make dinner together. Designate each child to have a task to help in the assembling of the food.
~ Pop popcorn and watch a family movie.
~ Drink hot cocoa and snuggle up with a big stack of books and READ to your child. If they are older, have them read to you.
~ Look through old photo albums together. Show your children how much they have grown and share with them how special they are to you.
~ Put together puzzles.
~ Work together to write a letter (or draw a picture if you have a smaller child) to someone in your family.
~ Go on a bike ride together.
~ Color with your child.
Please feel free to post a comment and share something you do together as a family. It is neat to see the traditions that other people have created in their homes.
I really do hope that you can create this tradition in your home. Making family night a priority is important and helps the relationships grow between yourself, your spouse, & your children.
Let us know if you decide to take us up on the challenge and share your family night experiences!
Amy ~MomAdvice
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March 5th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Great advice. It would be nice if every night could be family night but sometime that just isn't possible.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
What great advice! My church actually has a set aside night for families. (Monday night - we call it Family Home Evening.) There are NEVER any meetings or classes that night, no activities to conflict with the family spending time together. Even our temples are closed on Mondays! With a toddler, it's hard to have any sort of structure…but, generally, we have some songs…a prayer…a little lesson…and then TREATS! (Again, toddler…so, we're heavy on the songs, light on the lessons. If there was a lesson, it would be about a scripture story or something like that.) It's fun. When I was small, my family would set aside the Monday nearest to our birthday to let us pick a restaurant to go to for dinner. (With 5 kids, we had no shortage of nights out!)
March 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
We hold a family night each week. We plan different things each week and occasionally include others. We've done things like seeing a movie, holding a game tournament, and visiting Chuck E Cheeses. I've noticed that the kiddos have been interacting more together since we started this. Two of the girls even initiated a game together when it wasn't even game night!
March 5th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
We are big fans of Family Night here. We are faithful about it every week. We are a christian family that is trying to teach those ideals to our 2 year old in a world that wants to teach them their ideals. We have found that a short 2 minute Bible story first keeps our boys attention. Then we follow it up with FUN!!! Plenty of goofing around at the park, playing games such as Simon Says, whatever. We have found that having the TV on for Family time doesn't give us the oppotunity to get to know and love one another more (my husband gets "zoned in"). My little guy knows that Monday night is our night of FUN!!!Thank you for this article. They say that if more families spent time together even eating dinner together, many of the problems teens go through would be solved.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
we didn't really have a family night growing up, but i want to start that tradition with my own family. just sunday night, we tried to play charades with my 3 3/4 yr old. it was pretty silly but lots of fun.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Every Friday night is our "official" Family Night. We make pizza from scratch for dinner, have a special dessert (anything from ice cream sundaes to homemade brownies)and watch a "family-friendly" movie together. Each child is assigned a Friday to choose that evening's movie. (They get to go with my husband or me–and without siblings– to Blockbuster to pick the movie. They all love "surprising" their siblings with their choice!)
March 11th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Our family definitely loves family night. We actually have 2 family nights. On Wednesdays we play a different board game each week. Fridays we watch movies with popcorn and treats. My kids really look forward to these times.