Let's talk family time--

[Aubrey]

How much do you get? How much do you think is the right amount?

 

When you have a day set aside, say, what does that look like? What kinds of interruptions to the day are expected, ok, or pushed aside? For ex, if you've had the morning together, is that "enough"? Or are there times that nothing. except. profuse. bleeding. will. derail. this. day. And. that. counts. until. sunrise. TOMORROW. :lol:

[Parrothead]

Quality over quantity.

[Mommyof4ks]

We usually have mornings for school and 2-3 afternoons a week for the kids and I to enjoy time together. Our evenings are often busy, but no one does anything after 8pm so that we can have an hour of family time each night. Sunday is usually family time, but we only have church in the morning, so I know that does not work for others. Saturday we normally have some event in the morning and then we go do something fun either as a family unit or with another family. Our kids are young though (3-9), so we don't have to compete with friends and all day Sat. activities yet.

 

We believe in both quality and quantity, but that came out of tragedy a couple of years ago when we discovered how short life is. Before that I spent alot of time cleaning and DH spent alot of time reading while the kids played on the living room floor. I am not proud of the fact that we did not have much family time, but we are doing more now.

 

I have found that getting out of the house helps us stay focused on family time. Camping, geocaching, going to the park or ball field, or just riding bikes around the neighborhood.

 

Have fun! Different things work for different families.

[katemary63]

I agree with the idea that you need quality AND quantitiy family time. My husband has always insisted that our evenings not be scheduled away. We have a family dinner and then most nights, do something together. It may be recreation, it may be a job or project, but it is done together. Now that we are on the farm, MOST of our evenings are spend doing farm activities that include both.

 

We don't have more then 1 or 2 nights a week scheduled for sports or such, and that usually only last for the "season". We love to play board games and bingo. We go horseback riding and hiking regularily. We don't have cabel TV, but we do often rent movies and have popcorn and contrary to what some think, we consider this is a wonderful family activity. We all love movies.

 

But I would have to say the MOST important aspect to our family conectedness is the fact that Daddy has always insisted that we spend our evenings together. I have often offered to get a part time job working evenings to try to help out and he always turns it down flat. I would have to say that at least 75% of the time, we are all together from the time he gets home from work untill bed. We don't go our seperate ways, even in the house or on the farm. Of course this changes as the teens get older and go off on thier own. For them, we try to schedule a movie or hike together at least 1 X week.

[Amber in SJ]

I have 4 children from 14.5-4 and our family together time looks like this:

 

daily: we have breakfast & scripture study together, generally around 7:30am before daddy goes to work. Attendance is not mandatory, but you might miss breakfast if you don't show up. :001_smile: If DH is on a business trip we use a speaker phone when the time zone matches up and if the time zone doesn't match up then each child writes or dictates a little e-mail or voicemail for him so he can read the same scriptures we did.

 

Monday: Family night; otherwise known as Family Home Evening. We play games, sing songs, have lessons, plan other family activities, have family council on issues affecting the family. Whatever family business need to be taken care of is addressed at this family meeting. Attendance is mandatory for all. Again if DH is out of town he attends electronically if he can.

 

Friday: Pizza/ Movie night. We make pizza & a treat and watch 2 movies. The little person movie runs from 6:30-8ish (and we eat the pizza) and the big person movie runs from 8:30-ish to done when the littles are in bed. Sometimes the big person movie is a movie the 2 big kids can watch and sometimes it is only for DH & I. Attendance is not mandatory, but the children rarely miss. They can invite friends if they want as long as they let me know how much pizza to make.

 

Saturday: 1/2 the day is family project day. We have one Saturday that is a yard blitz for clean up & maintenence, one Saturday that is house blitz, one Saturday that is service project day where we work on a service project as a family that was planned at one of the Monday meetings and one Saturday that is a "family fun day" this is where we schedule family trips to the movies, museums, park days, etc. Attendance is mandatory. For the rest of the 1/2 day the children can do whatever they want.

 

Sunday: It is the Sabbath so we go to church and do the things that to us are Sabbath appropriate. Dh has meetings on this day that are related to what he does at church, but he always cooks breakfast for dinner and plays card or board games with the children after dinner. The children can choose to play or not, but so far they always choose to participate.

 

In case you are wondering if we are the crazy homeschooling family that forces family togetherness we have two children involved an a community play that requires 2 rehersals/ week, one child in an evening Tae Kwon Do class, One child who participates in an evening weekly youth activity at church along with the usual piano lessons, co-op and Dh 7 I have a weekly "date night." We don't do 'everything' together, but looking at this list it seems like we do plenty together. When I say attendance is mandatory it is not like there are threats, but you might miss out on something good if you don't show-up.

 

I will be interested in seeing what other people do for 'family time'

 

Amber in SJ

[Plucky]

I believe quality and quantity is best. We schedule Saturday nights as family night as often as possible. Just being together a lot doesn't mean we are always connecting (but it helps!) and having a special night makes us feel closer and the kids love it.

[Harriet Vane]

We have steadfastly, ruthlessly refused to get involved in evening commitments so that we could be together as a family. I have never, ever regretted this decision.

 

It wasn't always this way for us though--we used to attend midweek church events, and dd had tae kwan do two nights a week, plus twice a month we had pm commitments with the hs support group/enrichment club. It was too much. We did it because we thought that's what good parents and good Christians do. However, we could barely breathe.

 

We are now extremely protective of our evenings and weekends. We do care for five little cousins every Friday overnight. They are family, and it is here in our own home doing the same lovely things we value--reading aloud together, playing board games, etc.

 

A typical evening runs like this: Dh gets home at around 5:45 and wrestles with the kids for a while. We eat dinner sometime between 6:30-7pm. After dinner dh and ds practice guitar together. Depending on how much time there is we might play cards or board games or work on a project. Then we read to each kid for a while, and the kids go to bed. Ds is down by 8, and dd by 9pm.

 

If dh has work to do (bill-paying or work from his job) he typically starts on that at 8ish.

 

Saturdays are divided between playing together and household work. Dd might also have an hour of homework to do as well. Sundays are purely for play, after church.

[Amber in SJ]

I really need to use the preview post feature. Then I could correct my typos. Like the one that says DH 7 I, instead of DH & I. I do not have 7 DHs nor is my DH 7 (most of the time ;))

 

I just needed to clear that up, because I felt weird seeing it. :001_smile:

 

Amber in SJ

[Crissy]

I really need to use the preview post feature. Then I could correct my typos. Like the one that says DH 7 I, instead of DH & I. I do not have 7 DHs nor is my DH 7 (most of the time ;))

 

I just needed to clear that up, because I felt weird seeing it. :001_smile:

 

Amber in SJ

 

You can still correct them.

In the bottom right corner of your post is an Edit button. Click that, make your corrections then click Save.

 

:)

[Crissy]

Since we both work from home, we have quite a bit of family time. Much of it is flexible, and varies depending on the work we have to do on any given day.

What I won't give up is the family dinner. Regardless of our evening activities, we all sit down together for dinner.

Sometimes we have to eat early if my husband and I have a late event to photograph. Just last night we ate before 5:00 so we could spent that time as a family, clean up and have plenty of time for my husband and I to get to the high school dance we were photographing.

Other nights we eat rather late. Baseball season has just begun so I am planning for at least two 8:00 dinners each week.

I know we could grab a snack before the game and a burger at the concession stand during or after, but I am just not willing to give up our time around the table together every night.

[Aubrey]

Since we both work from home, we have quite a bit of family time. Much of it is flexible, and varies depending on the work we have to do on any given day.

What I won't give up is the family dinner. Regardless of our evening activities, we all sit down together for dinner.

Sometimes we have to eat early if my husband and I have a late event to photograph. Just last night we ate before 5:00 so we could spent that time as a family, clean up and have plenty of time for my husband and I to get to the high school dance we were photographing.

Other nights we eat rather late. Baseball season has just begun so I am planning for at least two 8:00 dinners each week.

I know we could grab a snack before the game and a burger at the concession stand during or after, but I am just not willing to give up our time around the table together every night.

 

That's so counter-cultural. I feel a tremendous amt of pressure from *everyone* in our lives to sacrifice this--not one night a week but every night. They say things like, "Maybe you could do a family lunch instead?"

 

And you know, we could, some days. But it's not the same. I don't know why.

 

Thanks for your response. I'm glad to know someone else feels even more strongly about this than me! :001_smile:

[joannqn]

What I won't give up is the family dinner. Regardless of our evening activities, we all sit down together for dinner.

:iagree:

 

We are the same way. For a while, we had evening activities three nights a week. My husband would cook two of those nights so we could have dinner at a decent hour when the kids and I got home. On Fridays, my son had a class that was just too late so my husband came to the YMCA straight from work to join us and we would eat at the in-house Subway after my son's class. We just don't understand how other families, especially public schoolers who don't see their kids most of the day, do it. We hated it so we quit.

 

My son really has a passion for martial arts so we found a taekwondo dojang to replace the quit YMCA class for him. Everything was great for a while because his classes were in the morning. Then the dojang quit their morning classes so now my son goes from 4-6pm Mon-Fri. We don't like it and the only reason we can manage it is for Dh to schedule his day to be home in time to take him while I stay home to pick up and cook dinner.

 

DS would like to be on the demo team for taekwondo but they require near perfect attendance for practice which is Saturdays from 12-2pm. That time stinks! You can't plan anything of any significance before or after so we had to tell him no to demo. We'd rather have our Saturdays open in case we want to do something fun together. During the summer, that's almost every weekend.

[The Girls' Mom]

We eat dinner together EVERY night. (the only exceptions are for illness, or when dh is out of town for business...but even then, just us girls still eat together)

 

We read the Bible together every night (with the exception of Sunday nights)

 

We usually have breakfast together on weekend mornings.

 

So, no we do not have a set family DAY, but focus more on doing things together as a family on a daily basis.

[Rosie_0801]

We have a carpet picnic for breakfast on the weekends and the days dh starts uni late. It's very companionable :) We also play SCA because it's an umbrella for all sorts of activities so we can do entirely different stuff but still feel like we've spent the day together. The wonderful thing there is the kids are welcome.

 

 

:)

Rosie

[Ann]

We have a Friday night make pizza and movie night. We also have dinner together almost every night. Plus we do stuff together as a family on the weekend.

[Joanne]

Since we both work from home, we have quite a bit of family time. Much of it is flexible, and varies depending on the work we have to do on any given day.

 

Originally Posted by Crissy

What I won't give up is the family dinner. Regardless of our evening activities, we all sit down together for dinner.

 

We have a weird combination of at home work and work outside the home work. DH works a split shift as a school bus driver. I homeschool mine and others and work outside the home 2 nights and one Saturday.

 

During baseball seasons and now with TKD, family dinners are limited. Of course we also don't have the kids every other weekend.

 

So....we are around each other most weekdays before lunch. We manage a family dinner on Mondays, Wednesdays before Youth Group, and Thursdays. DH handles the other nights/weekends when we have the kids because I work. Then they have family minus Mom. ;)

 

We worship together on Sundays and try, budget willing, to do things together. We do not intentionally create or protect "family time" as it would be fairly redundant as we seem to be together a lot.

[Aubrey]

We do not intentionally create or protect "family time" as it would be fairly redundant as we seem to be together a lot.

 

I've noticed a state of coexisting that has developed between us w/out any bonding, kwim? I don't think all time together has to be devoid of the bonding just because it's not planned, but...I guess I'm beginning to think that the more stressful life becomes, the more you have to carve out a space that's safe from all of the outside stuff. Maybe?

[ElizabethB]

We also work hard to do dinner together, but it's harder since my food allergies started--I have to make myself different meals and it's safer if I eat later if they're eating milk products, but I'll usually sit there for a while with them and then eat later if I can't eat with them. (Most of my meals are not kid or husband friendly, my son eats some of my special pancakes, but no one else likes any of my allergy food, and it's expensive, so I just cook several meals.)

 

When my husband works late, I snack up the kids and we eat late with him. Sometimes we'll bring food to his work if he's having an especially late night.

 

If they're especially hungry, I'll feed them dinner early, but they'll eat a second dinner with him if he's having something yummy! (They're very skinny so I don't worry about them eating too much.)

[MamaT]

We used to have a very strict everyone at dinner policy. That has changed since my daughters have progresssed in their dance and gym - they do not get home until 8:00 three nights a week.

 

We have family activities every weekend, working around the house, going to do something fun (bowling, movies, park, hiking, etc.). Most Friday nights we rent a movie everyone can watch. Sometimes on Saturdays we have a kickball game in our pasture. Most Friday nights there are three or four extra 15 yo boys sleeping in my basement.

 

We also have to spend some weekends out of town at gym meets. We try to make this fun for everyone. We also go camping one week and about four long weekends a year.

 

It has gotten harder to carve out family time with the children getting older and more involved in their own activities, but we manage to do it somehow.

[Peela]

We don't schedule family time. Life happens. The only evening dh doesn't work is Mondays. And here I am, Monday evening, on the computer :) However, he is around during the days and weekends too.

When we miss each other, we naturally spend more time together. Most dinners and some lunches we are together.

But if I tried to plan it, we would all feel restricted and constrained by it. We all like to do our own thing, dh likes to watch TV alone , the kids and I are usually in the middle of some series on DVD (Battlestar Galactica at the moment) and we are all computer addicts with a laptop each. But amongst it all, we do spend time together. There can be such a thing as too much family time, you know, too :) but only someone with a husband who works from home ALL THE TIME would understand :) :) :)

[oceandaughter]

Wednesday is family game night. Friday is movie night (unless we go somewhere together). Usually on Friday afternoon, Saturday, or Sunday we go explore some castle or something together. We used to do a family learning night on Thursday night and I'm seriously considering bringing this back as it takes some of the "special projects" pressure off of me and involves dad in the "school" more.

 

But, we are new to the area (to the nation actually!) and don't have many outside activities.

 

I was toying with the idea of having a family jam night (where we play music together) on Mondays but now I go to knitting group on Mondays. We do enjoy doing that together and manage to spontaneously do it so no need of planning I guess.

 

The way I figure it, sometimes people have different shows on different nights, this is the same sort of thing.

[charlotteb]

We have recently enacted Thursdays as family night. We get pizza for supper and then do a fun activity together- such as play board games, go out for ice cream, watch a movie, etc.

A while back, we were invited to my friend's parents' house and they still have family night even though the kids are grown up and moved out. One night a week, the kids come and bring their kids and they have a night similar to ours. So we stole their idea for us :) I think it would be so cool for family night to continue for that long!

[Guest Katia]

Family time? You mean with dh? Hmmmm.....I think on New Year's Eve he is home and plays board games with us.....unless, of course, he's involved in a party of some sort planned by a group at church.

 

Otherwise.....nope. Doesn't happen here. Never has. Family time is me and the kiddos. Even on 'vacations' (those times when we drive back-home to visit the folks) he goes off visiting, so other than car-time......again: nope.

 

When he actually has time to be home, he tries to catch-up on all those jobs most dh's do on weekends: yard work, etc.

 

"Time" is the operative word. A pastor has next-to-none to call his own and the family suffers. And when you are in a very small church and the job is bi-vocational.....he still works full-time at the church (because that's just the way of the pastor) and still has to work one or two jobs on the side.

 

We try to be content with what little time we get with him.....and try to feel like a family unit without him.

[oceandaughter]

Wow, I'm so sorry to hear that.