Yesterday in Sacrament Meeting all of the speakers spoke about the importance of family. The youth speaker spoke of how grateful she was that her family had family activities along with their family home evenings every night. She talked about how having the fun with her family helped her to love them.
I think that family activities are a very important part of family life. My family always had a family activity on Monday nights. We would spend at least an hour together as a family playing games or goofing off. It was a lot of fun. It is easy to become caught up in planning impressive family activities—a trip to the zoo or a day at a museum, or a rafting trip as a family. These are good activities to do, but you can also plan simple activities at well.
Some activities that my family did on Monday nights included playing charades and Simon Says as a family. We would also make a trip to the library on some Monday nights. I always chose that activity. I don’t know how my brothers and sisters felt about it. We would take turns deciding what to do that way eventually you got to do something that you really wanted to.
When the weather was nice our activities tended to be outdoor activities. We might go for a walk as a family or play an outdoor game. My favorite outdoor activity was playing baseball with a big red plastic bat and ball. By the end of the evening half of the neighborhood was over playing along with us.
Spending time having fun together as a family is a wonderful way to build lasting positive relationships with your children. I think the activity part of family home evening is almost as important as the lesson itself. I know that the reason I am friends with my brothers and sisters is because we spent time together every week having fun.