The New Year is a time for new beginnings. It’s a time for families to come together, celebrate the year that was, and commit themselves to a year ahead filled with growth, rewarding time in one another’s company and resolutions of other kinds.
Here are 10 resolutions that will help your family have their best year ever in 2018.
1. Spend Time Together as a Family
With multiple options available for entertainment, endless kid lessons, activities away from home, and time spent with friends, having the whole family together at the same time in the same place can be a rarity. Make it the norm. Whether it is an evening playing a board game at home or family biking expeditions around the neighborhood, a family that plays together stays together.
2. Stay Active
With smartphones, tablets, and computers, families are in danger of becoming too sedentary. In fact, the country is in the midst of an obesity epidemic that can undermine health and happiness. Go for walks together, take active family holidays, encourage participation in sports, and just keep moving. Physical health and mental wellbeing are intimately connected.
3. Eat Healthier
The sooner a family realizes that what they eat can affect their physical, mental, and emotional health, the faster they will be on their way to achieving wellness. Resources are abound online about healthy eating choices; all that it takes is a commitment to doing it. Also, when you eat well, a less-healthy snack such as chips or chocolate is a treat, and not just something to take for granted.
4. Get Outdoors More
There is a whole world beyond the walls of your home, office, and school. Go camping together as a family, visit parks, walk the dog, and travel for active holidays. Connecting to the larger natural world makes you appreciate your small place in it even more.
5. Say Your Hellos and Goodbyes
Make every arrival and departure of a family member an occasion. Practice saying your hellos and goodbyes. Don’t rush in or out without a word, or just a fast one, like a ghost. When you take time to say to goodbye and have fun with a departing child and mean it, both your value in each other’s eyes grows.
6. Volunteer Together
One of the best ways to appreciate what you have is to help others who don’t. Volunteering together enables kids and parents to both learn the joy of helping others in a worthwhile cause. Selflessness beats selfishness any day.
7. Put Down Your Devices
Too much of our lives these days are sucked up by the electronic devices our eyes are glued to. As a family, make it practice to put them down and actually live a real life. Family mealtimes aren’t when you should be receiving texts and emails, no matter how good the friend or urgent the need at the office.
8. Have a Game Night
Choose a day every week to have a family game night. Sitting around a table, playing a round of Crazy Eights or a board game, is fun and soon you’ll be counting off the days to the next game night.
9. Keep Them Laughing
Silliness is serious business. Whether it’s the crazy dad, the practical joker mom or the kid on his way to stand up comic fame, a family that learns to laugh together can weather just about any storm.
10. Read Together More
A lifetime of learning, achievement, and fulfillment starts when kids learn to love reading. One of the best things parents can do with younger children is read to them and with them, so they catch the bug early.
As kids get older, it’s important to keep them reading. Perhaps have set times in the evening and on weekends when all screens go off and book covers open. Kids, no matter what their age, will look to the parents as an example. So it is important to model good behavior and read yourself.
If you have any concerns about your child’s ability to read, then consider getting help from the team at Read Smart. Like you, we understand your child’s reading skills pave the way for their entire academic and professional life. Our unique reading program will help them get ahead and stay ahead.
