Wholesome Family Recreation: Building Strong Families

 “Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work and wholesome recreational activities.”

In our world today; many people do not use their time wisely; our time especially our free time needs to be spent in meaningful activities. In preparation for this post, I did some revaluating of my life and this is an area that needs work. The title of this post is not Wholesome recreation, but Wholesome Family Recreation. Adding a simple little word brings a whole new meaning. Yes, there are times when I believe an individual should have their own time for recreation and other things; building families through recreation is important. There really is no end to the amount of work a family must accomplish and getting in that family time is sometimes difficult. Time really is a big constraint when it comes to family recreation; effort must be put forth to be able to get in that quality family time.

An example in my own life is brought to my mind. My husband spent many years in the golf industry. He spent a lot of time on the golf course. Golf is a long sport and takes time; I wanted him to get his time to play but also wanted to spend time together. Once in a while, since he ran the golf course, I would bring the kids up to the course and we would all do a round together. It was kind of a win win situation. He was able to play but also spend time with us. Our son loves golf as well and he had fun too.

Let’s talk about different forms of recreation. The first is parallel activities: this involves multiple doing the same thing but there is no interaction; examples of this is watching movies and television. The second is joint activities: this involves multiple family members who are communicating and interdependent on each other. Examples of this would be canoeing, playing tennis or chess. The last is independent activities: this involves just one person doing an activity alone. It has been said that joint activities are most beneficial in marriage and families. Joint activities promote interaction and can be positive. 

If a child gets a solid foundation in this concept it will carry with them throughout their lives. It is important to teach about finding a balance between work, time and activities. Activities that are fun are important but also activities that help others are also nice as well. Wholesome recreation should include fun as mention above but also can include service to others. Family recreation is promoted to bring families together. I know for my little family right now, just spending time together doing an activity is important. When our kids get older we will definitely reevaluate. We like, going to the park, playing baseball or any other sport, taking walks, going on bike rides, bowling, making cookies and many more.

It is important to note that not all family recreation will be happy. Different family members might have different experiences in a certain activity. I know in my family; we love playing games. I say we but I should say everyone except me. I love playing games on the computer that make me thing or put me up against a clock to complete something but when I am put on a team to play a game, I get clammy and uncomfortable and do not do well. Growing up it was hard, but now I have a nice time just watching them play. I like being part of the group and interacting with everyone, I just don’t like to play the game. For me, that works. There are a few games that I will play, so I like it when get those out =)

above is a favorite family game, that I do not like. I have fun watching them play...below are two games that I do like to play

 

Wholesome recreation in families can promote positive development in children and marriages as well as build strong families. My family’s motto growing up was we work hard, we serve hard, we play hard. I love this, I believe with my whole heart that happiness can be achieved in life when our families are centered in Christ and that successful families are built on solid foundations of “faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work and wholesome recreational activities.”