The Family That Plays Together Stays Together

 

(Image retrieved from https://www.lds.org/media-library/images/category/family-and-family-history-picture-quotes?lang=eng)

I know, I’ve played with that saying a little to fit this post. I think it is appropriate though. Once again, I’m going to the 7^th paragraph of the Proclamation to teach another important principle about family life. “Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of … work, and wholesome recreational activities.” The last post was about the blessings of work in family life, and this one is going to focus on wholesome recreation. Fun, right? Yes, but it is more than just fun. I’m using “Wholesome Family Recreation: Building Strong Families” by Mark A. Widmer and Stacy T. Taniguchi (Hawkins, et al., pp. 225-236) as the basis for this post.

 

What do you consider wholesome family recreation? For us, it can be any number of things. We enjoy playing board games and card games together. Sometimes we have a bowling tournament on the Wii. We like to go bike riding, hiking, camping, and swimming. Now that the youngest is tall enough to get on most of the ride, we like to go to Cedar Point, or Kings Island. That usually only happens when Dad’s work has a family day at one of the amusement parks, and we can get in at a greatly reduced price, but we still love to do it.

According to Widmer and Taniguchi, “The components of wholesome recreation include opportunities to verbally communicate, develop skills, face challenges, create memories share traditions and beliefs, and spend time together in the family setting.” (Hawkins, et al., p. 233)

Why is family recreation time so important to strong families? What does doing enjoyable activities do for family relationships? A few of the areas that Widmer and Taniguchi focus on are marriage, children, and adolescents. In the marriage relationship, doing activities together “strengthen relationships by promoting interaction, communication, and cooperation.” (Hawkins, et al., p. 231) For young children, playing together with parents “helps them become more secure and independent.” (Hawkins, et al., p. 231) Playing is also “a powerful tool to facilitate parent-child connection because it allows the parents to interact on the child’s level. Young children love to play not only because it is fun, but also because it makes them feel loved.” (Hawkins, et al., p. 231)

There is so much good that comes from wholesome family recreation, but I confess that as a family we don’t put as much effort into planning or just spontaneously having fun together due to one major obstacle that we have allowed to get in the way – personal electronics. On any night, you could walk into our house and find each member of the family doing something on a personal electronic device. We might all be in the same room, but none of us is interacting with another member of the family. These statements from Widmer and Taniguchi really hit home. “We seem to be connected to the whole world electronically yet disconnected to those closest to us.” Electronics “may provide great relaxation which sometimes is needed, but are not nearly as valuable in promoting family growth and development”, and “they tend to isolate us from other family members.” (Hawkins, et al., p. 228) 

After I read this chapter for class, I made up my mind that I was going focus on getting my family to put down the devices and start doing more together as a family. The results have been promising. We have spent more time having dinner together at the table instead of in front of the TV, we’ve spent more time working together to quickly get chores done so we could play a game, and we’ve had to deal with a few more conflict that have come about due to competitiveness. That’s not a bad thing though! We are leaning how to deal with conflicts together, as well, and learning how to lose graciously. Most of all, we are creating memories and creating stronger ties between us.