Have you ever seen those ads that say things like “If you do this ONE thing, you’ll get rid of all your debt” or “you’ll lose all your belly fat” or whatever other not likely scenario someone is peddling? Well, let me give you another one that sounds unlikely but actually works…having fun with your family can change everything about it! Research shows that it can:

• Increase the resilience and resistance to stress (helps disarm the power of stressors and temptations to turn to harmful things)

• Create relational safety and security (which makes everyone want to connect and share about their thoughts, feelings and needs)

• Transmits the values you’re trying to establish

• Teaches healthy boundaries and how to make relationship repairs

• Helps process and heal the results of stress and trauma

However, it comes at a high price. You will not find the time to do this. If you want the reward, you’ll have to give up something to create the time. But I can’t imagine you’ll regret it. At the end of my life, there will be many extra work hours, meetings, seminars and events that I will never remember. I’ll bet I would trade almost any of them for an extra hour to play with my kids…

Check out my latest video on this and see where you can begin this journey!

Here are some helpful starters, too:

50 Ways to Have Fun as a Family - TREEfort Child and Family Therapy

40 Dinner Questions - https://www.encourageplay.com/

Would you Rather Questions - https://www.encourageplay.com/

Photo by Sophie Elvis on Unsplash