After a world wind weekend of little league, soccer, and football. I find myself tired and looking at a new week of work. I have started a new discipline which is to take a few moments and reflect upon all that we did and the miles in between and I examine honestly and intentionally, whether or not the weekend was beneficial to my family and to my life. I would have to say I had some great moments reflecting upon football camp and my sons good catches at camp, my daughter running around the soccer field, and after countless walks my sons first big hit where he missed first base and turned a double into a single. Those memories are priceless. Yet in the midst of everything I realize that in all the running we didn’t spend much time together as a family. In the little down time that everyone had, everyone isolated themselves to do their own thing and little time was spent with one another.
A survey was done in 2011 and one of the questions in the survey was “ If you were able to change something to make your family stronger, what would it be?” 12-17 % of the individuals surveyed desired to live closer to family, improve finances, and improve relationships with one another. I believe the need is there but how do we bring changes to our situation? He are some things that could help. Plan ahead, create a family calendar that on a monthly basis everyone’s personal calendar must go through so that you intentionally have scheduled time together. Another practical tip could be to prioritize one on one time with each of your children as some clinicians I know would state “one child, one parent, once a week”. When you schedule their activities, do things your kids would like to do andask them for their input. Lastly learn to say no. Yes, it’s one of the hardest things to do at times, but not everything needs to be done in one day or weekend.
Building healthy family takes work and strategic planning. I hope these tips will encourage you to invest in you life and those of the generations to follow.
Pastor Dave
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