Do you have a set family day each week- when is it? Is Sunday just an anything goes day or is it the same each week? We dont go to church so around here it is a whatever...weekend kind of day. Well, hubby and I had a disagreement this past Sunday and he finally tells me yesterday what got him so mad. The kids played with the neighbor friends ALL wknd. This made him mad and he said he wanted to spend the day with just family. (Well, why didnt he tell me that?) Im ok with the kids playing all wknd if we have nothing else to do. He said they spent too much time with friends and should have been spending time with us. I think if we want them to have family time and not spend it with friends- then we need to do something with them. (He spent all day Sat out fishing with a friend and of course the kids playing didnt bother him then) He is off every other wknd and normally does his thing, or wants to sit and watch tv. Well, guess what......The rest of us dont want to sit and watch tv- I dont consider that family time. I understand that we dont have to go anywhere but he doesnt even go outside and just play with the kids. He will sit out there and watch them play but he rarely gets involved. So, now I am thinking I would absolutely LOVE a family day-. Sunday- family time, no phones, no computer- just us. Too extreme? Just wondering what other familys do to spend some quality time together Thanks moms
Once a week we have a family night which intales of game, popcorn and movie. The game can be anything from a board game to a card game to mini golf to outdoor game of tag.
We have a family day once a month, between hubby's work and then me working some nights and weekends we can not always have a full day family day. We always make time for a family night once a week.
We don't have a definite family day picked out either. There are times that I'd rather the kids not be gone all day, but in all honesty, I'm totally with you in that unless I've got something actually planned for all of us to do, why should they be forced to sit in the house all day & watch me catching up on a couple of shows that were dvr'ed, making a grocery list, cleaning the bathroom & folding laundry?? That's generally how I like to spend my Sundays. ;)
Every Sunday I make pancakes while everyone gets ready for church. After church it's football, laundry, grocery shopping, housework. Husband will maybe take kids to the park or out front to ride bikes on big wheels, throw a ball around or whatever. Last Sunday after church we went to a Pumpkin patch to take pictures, face painting, hay rides. Then to the house for football, laundry, housework and a nap.
Why not ask you husband on his next weekend coming up - what did you have in mind for this weekend? Do you have plans with the fellas or do you want to spend some family time? If he says family time, offer some suggestions. Hey, theres a street fair, festival, concert whatever going on, how does that sound? If he says no, ask him, ok sweetie, what did you have in mind for us.
Maybe instead of a WHOLE day with "just you", you start small....maybe a 3 hour block of no electronics, just family time. Plan some activities so that you're not just sitting around and staring at each other :) Depending on the age of your children, you could all go for a bike ride or hike, play soccer outside, play some board games, bake cookies or make an elaborate dinner together (where everyone makes a different course).
Family time is about quality, not quantity. Everyone will enjoy themselves more if there is an enjoyable activity to participate in (and that everyone DOES participate) for a few hours, rather than just "today is family day....so no friends or tv or anything".
On our weekends, we typically visit with friends or family, play outside or in with the kids, clean up outside (mow, rake, whatever). My older two have dance classes on Saturday morning. My middle daughter and I love to bake and cook together, so we often do that while my husband plays with the oldest and baby. We have a large extended family that we're close to, so there are birthdays or anniversaries at least once a month that we attend, or just go visit grandparents for dinner.
Well I was with him until I read the part about him being gone on Sat fishing w/a friend. So it's okay that he gets to spend time w/his friends doing what HE loves AWAY from his family.
Having said that I see both sides.
I don't think he needs to be the ogre and try and lay down the law when he wasn't even home.
But I do think some downtime & family time is essential.
It doesn't have to be a big outing but can just be at home watching tv together, having dinner, sitting outside for 1/2 an hour, going for a walk together after work etc.
So you, as a family ,have to find YOUR happy medium.
We relax at home, work on the yard/in the garage together, sometimes watch a show together, eat dinner together etc.
We don't go to church either. But every Sunday afternoon, DH, our 10 year old son and I go bowling together. Sometimes our 21 year old nephew goes with us (he lived with us for over 7 years) - and sometimes my 19 year old daughter goes. But the 3 of us always go together.
Maybe it's just b/c my husband is in the Army, but pretty much when he's not working, that's family time LOL
We have family game day on Thursdays (b/c my husband gets off work at 3pm that day). We each pick one game we want to play, it can be a board game, card game, video game, etc. and then we spend the day playing all of them =)
We also do pajama movie days sometimes on a Sat or Sun...everyone gets to pick a movie and we stay in our pjs and cuddle on the couch all day!
On Sunday, we go to church. We are usually there for about 5 hours. We love the fellowship with our church family. After the service, we share a snack or a meal together and just catch up with everyone. We often will either have a couple of families back to our house afterwards, or we will go to someone else's home. It truly is the Lord's Day for us, and we spend the time with our church family.
For quality time, I don't really think you can schedule it. It happens spontaneously when you have quantity time together. We homeschool, so we have a bunch of time together. My husband is home a lot of the time, working from home, so he has time with the kids also. We try to do fun stuff together as much as possible, but we mostly work together. We also take a lot of vacations, as we like to travel. So, we include the children in that also. I really think you have to work hard at tying those heartstrings with our children. It doesn't just happen. We talk a lot, play games together, laugh together, work together. Walk along, talk along, teaching, growing, sharing, loving. We don't really do tv, other than some videos and netflix. Very controled viewing. My husband hates tv and never watches anything unless we are watching a documentary or something together as a family for learning purposes. It is a time sink.
we dont do church either, if we didnt get some family time in on Sat then we supplement it with Sunday. Go to a museum, zoo, park, walk to the local playground, go on a drive to a close by town and check out whats going on. Apple Orchards, Petting Zoo's, local festival. Our kids a really young yet, but we want to involve them the best we can with family oriented things. I am a SAHM, while my husband is MIA most of the week. He tends to like to run with friends till late on the weekends so I MAKE him do things during the day with us, whether he wants to or not. He is a great dad when he is focused on it.
I agree with you: if you are going to have family time, the DO SOMETHING TOGETHER!!!!! Otherwise, in my opinion, you're building the idea that family time with the family.....bites. Blech! Who wants to sit in the living room around the TV all day????
We do have a family day: usually Sunday. Monday through Friday, there's homeschool, work, lessons/classes (soccer OR horseback riding lessons depending on the season, kung fu, kindermusic, and Bible study), and outings with mommy where I take the kids to a museum, the beach, a local bounce house place, a petting zoo, etc. On Saturdays, we play. But sometimes that's a soccer game, we do go to the fitness center together that day, it's often some birthday party to go to, or we'll have UFC fight night where friends will come over and we'll watch a fight and eat or whatever. It's often when we plan backyard bbq and the neighbors come over, etc. But that could change! We keep an eye on the community events and PLAN things that sound fun. (Hey, there's a seafood festival coming up....or a car show....or that new paintball place is opening up....the weather is going to be awesome, let's plan on going to the beach, or whatever seasonal events you have in your town, etc).
Sunday is our normal family day. We sleep just a little bit late (or I'll get up and get the boys their drinks and turn on a movie for them and my husband and I will lounge in bed a little bit), we fix a bigger breakfast (during the week it's cereal, yogurt, oatmeal, or frozen waffles but on Sunday it's a real breakfast: quiche, pancakes, eggs/bacon/biscuits, omelets, french toast and fruit, etc). We go to church at 10, are back by 11:15, have a very light little lunch and put the boys to bed for naps. When they're napping we'll either lay down for a nap or watch a movie and play scrabble or something similar together. When the boys wake from their naps, we may take a walk in the nature preserve, go to the beach, play outside something like bocce, croquet, soccer, Tball, tag football, or catch, or sometimes Jer will do a science experiment. Sometimes there's a chore that needs to get done that isn't a normal thing, so our older son has fun doing it with his dad (last week they went to "the man store"--Lowes, flushed the gutters on the side of the house to get the pineneedles out, and then made paper all by themselves). If that's what's happening, then I either cook dinner or our younger son putters around with me acting like he's helping too: we put the straw in a wagon, or he mows the grass with his bubble mower, so we're all together. Then I take our oldest to Awanas from 5:15-7:15 (a church club that is kind of a cubscouts meets vacation Bible school thing) while my husband plays with our youngest. Dinner is always ready before we go to Awanas and we eat it when we get home, around 7:30. Then it's the evening routine and getting ready for bed. We watch Amazing Race together too, that's our "thing" for years, before even being married.
Family day is important. But it's not just "a day" as much as "TIME". And we have never banned friends, neighbors, phones, or computers, and the TV is on at times but not a central part of the day or something we're expected to gather around. However, if you're busy "doing" or "playing" and having fun together, then the phones, computers, and TV do kinda get put off to the side. I wouldn't suggest going from "doing nothing" to banning all normal life and forcing "fun" on everyone. I say pick something to do and make your family time around that. It will just sort of grow and develop. Like, we just figured out that sleeping in to us is 7am (HA) so we have 3 hours before church to cuddle, cook, look at the paper and cut coupons, get ready for church, play with the kids. Church, then lunch, nap is at around 11:45 so they are up no later than 1:45 and we've got 3 1/2 hours of "whatever" before Awanas (which is negotiable---we like it, but if we had something great going on, we don't have to go). Routines and schedules are fun as long as they are still flexible and allow for life.
We try to have one night a week where we spend a couple of hours doing something together.
If you google ideas for family fun night or family home evening you'll have tons of ideas. You and hubby can put the acceptable ones in a jar and let the kids pick one each weekend. Make sure if there is an activity in the town that weekend that you fully explore the option of doing that instead.
Everyone enjoys watching tv and resting sometimes so he needs to have time too, just like you do when the kids are outside playing. Decide on the activity and plan when and where then look forward to it.
We do BMX each week on Sunday afternoons.
On Sundays we go to my parents and sometimes my grandparents houes (so sort of like extended family day.) My husband has a set scheadule from both his jobs and sundays is the only day he gets off from both of them. So he likes sleeping in (as long as our toddler...who needs daddy time...will let him) then I make breakfast. (sundays is one of the only days we all get to eat breakfast together) and we take it easy through the morning. Then in the afternoon drive out to my parents, and sometimes eat dinner there.
weekends are our family time. i always spend time with my kids but my husband is always at work. So Saturdays and Sundays are ours. Sundays specifically start with us going to 9 am Mass. We get bagels afterwards, come home change and either play in the backyard, or invite neighbor's kid, play, bike, and at the end of the day we sit around fire and roast marshmellows. i am happiest on weekends.
I always say if there is anything "good" about divorce, its not having the kids every other weekend...nice break! On the weekends that we have our kids, Friday nights are "family fun night". Which is always pizza and salad for dinner and then a movie we all watch together. We make popcorn in the middle. We are very active with the kids all weekend when we have them. We usually take them to a movie (if there is a kid movie out), out to eat, the park, swimming (in the summer), bike riding or going to visit my mom. We live on a cul-de-sac with neighborhood kids from school but the kids mostly play with them after homework is done during the week. We always have weekends as "family time". My kids are older, 15, 12 and 9 and it won't be much longer that they are still wanting to be home, they will be off with their friends all weekend soon enough. So just talk to hubby and see if you guys can start off with just maybe friday night or sunday morning and start a tradition. Good luck!
When the kids were little we had family time in many ways: going to the park/zoo, hanging out at the pool, going to the movies, working in the yard, baking cookies, shopping at Costco.
As far as sitting in front of the TV, yes, we did that too, watched lots of great family movies together over the years. My husband plays video games so the kids grew up playing video games with daddy, which was fine with me, they had a lot of fun together :)
If he likes to go fishing why don't you do that as a family?
We are all together always, everyday. Sundays are our sloth days where we do nothing! I especially live them if its raining!
We do 'family fun day' every Saturday. We go to a museum, the zoo, a park or something along those lines. Its great to get out of the house and spend time just the three of us. Sitting in front of the tv is not spending quality time together. But it is nice that he wants to spend time with the kids :)
Nah, we don't have a family day picked out. But now that our kids are getting of age to take them both places, we have started doing family things. Dinner out, bowling, shopping...etc. But we don't have a planned day, just whenever free time comes along.
we do nothing in the morning but hubby goes to work, then work out, in the afternoons. he's home about dinner time, then we do grocery shopping. i spend the afternoon doing laundry, watching tv. boys are very low key also. we take it easy but not sloth like.
