SEVEN-PART SERIES

Finding Time for Family

It is critically important for families to make it a top priority to spend time together doing the things you have always loved to do.  In football, a championship team always consists of players and coaches that have a genuine love for the sport – they wouldn’t voluntarily spend countless hours preparing each week if they didn’t enjoy it. 

Even off the field, winning teams usually frequent a favorite restaurant of theirs before or after each game, have their own school cafeteria table, and even spend summers together traveling to camps and enduring through two-a-days.  Spending quality time together boosts the morale of the team, just like it would boost the morale of any family.  Not spending time together, on the other hand, delivers the exact opposite effect and has made victims of football teams as well as families across the board.

In Falling for God, author Gary Moon illustrates this exact point in terms of something anyone can relate to – an innocent teenage crush.  Moon tells the story of one of his childhood friends that finally worked up the nerve to ask his obsession to go steady for the summer.  Fortunately, she said ‘yes.’ Unfortunately, the story only goes downhill from there for the teenage boy as he became so overwrought with anxiety about this new relationship, he felt his only option was to spend the least time as possible away from her, ignoring her, in order to keep the good vibes going.

Not surprisingly, his new girlfriend was not reciprocating those same good vibes.

It took only half the summer but he eventually sensed something was wrong with their relationship in his limited interaction with her.  So, he mustered up the courage to write her note asking if they were still an item to which she replied, “Not anymore, since we never actually went anywhere.”

Sadly, that summer flame quickly extinguished due to lack of time spent together. 

Not surprisingly, the same thing happens to even the most talented of football teams when they don’t make it a point to spend time together, and it’s a guarantee that the same thing happens to the most best equipped families.

This illustration only goes to show what the importance of time spent together plays in establishing and maintaining a winning culture in families. 

So, as a family, plan a fun weekly activity that would motivate each member to take a part in and consistently follow through with it on a monthly, if not weekly, basis.

The best way to create and consistently duplicate such an activity would be to establish a family ritual of some sort.  And, believe it or not, some families already have a type of ritual without even knowing it. 

We’ve all heard of families that drive down to Florida for spring break every year either enjoying all the amusement parks Disney has to offer or out sunbathing on the many Sunshine State beaches.  Other families make it a point to go down to Lenox every Fourth of July and Thanksgiving night for fireworks and the Christmas tree lighting.  I’ve even treated a family that annually trains for and participates in the Peachtree Road Race together, which they happily report injects life into the otherwise dull home environment.

Most families see these annual activities as the recharge they so desperately needed.  Unfortunately, they leave it there, only serving as a recharge when - in actuality - family activities could be used for so much more.

So, instead of once or twice a year family recharge, families might want to look into becoming more proactive and engage in a steady dose of family recess. 

Sometimes families forget to have fun with each other. And, just like with any sports team, if players and coaches are not having fun with one another, no one comes out a winner.

Written by: Jordan R. Yates, MA MFT, LAPC, Children, Adolescent and Family Therapist at Restoration Counseling of Atlanta