Making more family time

WASHINGTON (CNS) - Increasing demands of work, school and community pull parents and their children in a hundred different directions these days, often leaving them with little time to be at home as a family. One solution to this dilemma is to put "together-time" on the calendar, said Kathi Probo, director of the Family Life Office of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va.

Families need to be "intentional about spending time together, literally scheduling it in," then they need to really "make the most of that time," she said. Parents should consider their children's different ages and particular interests, and plan "things that the kids really enjoy doing," Probo said. Otherwise it will be "much more difficult for the whole family to buy into the difference that families spending time together can make." Ladies Home Journal offered these suggestions on family time from Sheila Ellison, author of "How Does She Do It? 101 Life Lessons From One Mother to Another" (Harper San Francisco, 2004): Plan a weekly dinner, whether it is just a pizza delivered to the door or a special meal the children help prepare; hold a game night (not just for board games; try a card game) or have an impromptu play or a talent show; make cleaning the house or straightening up the garage a family project for a weekend morning. The Putting Family First organization has other suggestions for making family time (http://www.puttingfamilyfirst.org): Create a family reading hour when "everyone reads silently - together"; work together in the yard; or plan the family vacation by researching the destination together. The group's Web site has a number of resources and links to help families reclaim some of their time together. Balancing the types of family activities is important too, Probo said. She suggested families set aside time to do a service project or outreach in their neighborhood, local community or parish. In the autumn, for example, parents and their children could go to the home of elderly neighbors and collect their leaves or in wintertime shovel their walks, she said. "You're outside with your child, you're engaged in a very healthy activity; you're also teaching the importance of being attentive to the needs of people around us and how we can in very small ways really help one another," she added. Kevin Fuller, director of youth ministry for the Diocese of Grand Island, Neb., also advocates families spend time helping others. By "doing social justice service together, young people know it is important to adults," he said. "I think that's one of the greatest things families can do." He said he knows many families who prepare a Thanksgiving Day or Christmas meal together in their own kitchen, then take it to a needy family and sit down with them to eat it or invite a family over to their house to share it. In his own household, he said, he and his wife also have made a conscious decision to follow the social justice mandate to live simply. "It frees up our money and our resources so that we don't have to be working all the time," he said. "We value putting family time over and above the financial things we can give to our family." Though his children are still small, he and his wife both have breakfast and dinner with the children. They pray together at meals and at bedtime too. "You get who you are -if you are a person who goes to church and is prayer-filled ... then that is how your children are going to be," he added. Fuller also said he thinks moms and dads need to spend quality time together by having, say, "a date night." "That improves the family relationship overall," he said. One strategy for making the home a place where family members will come together is to put the family's television and computer in the main family room and not allow separate televisions or computers in bedrooms. "I'm a big believer of not having televisions in bedrooms," said Fuller. Keeping the television and computer in the family's main room promotes togetherness, he said. "Even if one young person or child is playing a game on the television and another one is on the computer, and mom and dad are just reading out in the main room, they're all together. I think that's pretty important." - - - Asher is national news editor at Catholic News Service.

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