Making Family Fun Activities A Priority
Family relationships should be a priority. As a parent, one of the things that matters the most in life is that our children know we love them and that they are important to us. We have good intentions, and think about all the things we hope to do “someday.” But we all know that to make it happen is not so easy. “Someday” never comes unless we get it on the calendar and make it happen. For this reason, we decided to make a family fun activity list and then schedule one activity per month to do together from this list. By far, this is the best way we have found to make family relationships a priority. You’ll want to have each member of the family present for this activity.
Supplies Needed:
- Your peeps – each member needs to be present
- A sheet of notebook paper
- Pen
- Your planner/calendar
FIRST STEP: Brainstorming Ideas
Once everyone is present, it’s time to get the brainstorming session going, ask each person their favorite family activities from the past year. Next, ask each family member, one at a time, without interruption, to name what they would like to do this year? This is just a fun time to dream together, by all means, let the ideas flow! Once everyone starts throwing out ideas, you will find that other family members are excited to do that as well. It is okay if several members mention the same activity. For example, a week at your favorite vacation spot or an amusement park may be a favorite among many family members. You might be surprised to learn more about each other’s favorite things during this session.
Here are a few examples from our list: go to the beach as often as possible, horse riding on the beach, local festivals, amusement parks, concerts, camping, and hiking.
SECOND STEP: Make a List
Now that you have everyone involved and excited, make a list of all activities mentioned. For now, anything and everything gets written on the list, regardless of cost. Next, go down the list and ask each member of the family to vote “yes” or “no”, if that is something they would like to do. For everyone that would be interested in doing the activity on the list, put their name/initial beside the activity. For instance: Dad wants to go camping, so does mom and one child. Put Dad, Mom, and child’s name/initials next to Hiking. (The reason I put their name instead of just a checkmark is so that I can remember each person’s likes. Who knows, maybe we will get to surprise them something throughout the year even if the whole family can’t attend.)
CONSIDER YOUR BUDGET
This doesn’t have to be an expensive trip each month. Make it fit your budget. Some of our very favorites have been hiking at different state parks around where we live, going fishing, roasting marshmallows by the fire. The point is to make family fun a priority, not to break the bank. We save the more expensive items that make the cut for birthday months or summer vacation.
THIRD STEP: Choose the twelve most popular
Seeing what got the most votes makes it easy to consolidate the long list of activities into a “most popular” list. After that, the top twelve go on our yearly family fun activity list. The goal is to have one family fun activity for each month.
MAKE IT HAPPEN: Schedule each month’s activity
This is where your planner or calendar comes into play. After looking over the most popular activities and considering the budget, I schedule one activity per month for the upcoming year. Firstly, I try to incorporate the most popular choices among everyone. Secondly, pick one activity from each family member’s list to add to the calendar. In addition to this, try to make sure the individuals choice is planned on their birthday month. Finally, looking at the items you have chosen from the list, pick an appropriate month for that activity. Ex. Skiing – a winter month, go to a Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree – Nov/Dec, Beach trip – Jun-Aug, Hiking – Oct, etc. The goal is to schedule one family fun activity each month. Get it on the calendar and make it happen!
We have done this for the past few years, and it has been such a relationship builder for our family. Everyone in the family knows that we are making time together a priority. We have something fun to look forward to each month, and the memories that are made, of course, are priceless!