Discover some secrets to making more time for your family

Research done during National Family Week seems to show that many of us want to spend more time with our families. Over 3,000 parents and children took part in the survey, with 62% of children saying they spend less than 45 minutes a day doing things as a family - less than five hours a week, including weekends.

When it comes to leisure, only 5% of families say they play sports together, 3% say they read together, and just 2% of parents say they help their children with homework. More than a quarter of all children (28%) and half of all parents (55%) say they want to spend more time with their family.

Time pressure

The figures indicate the time pressure many families face, but there are some positives to draw from the report. Many families want to spend time together; they just find that modern life thwarts them in their attempts. Many parents recognise it would be good to spend more quality time with their children. The question is, "How can we make time?"

One trick is to treat all your times together as 'together time'. Meal times are a good example of this - you could try to extend your meal times with a short family game afterwards. There are several novel and fun card games available which can be easily played at the dinner table. Or if your children are older, just delay the washing up and take time to sit around and chat over a cup of coffee.

Car journeys are another everyday occurrence you can turn into a special time. Ban the iPods and the Nintendo DS from the backseat, and play a game like 'Who Am I?' or 'Number Plate Bingo'. Encourage your children to make up new games too.

One reason why parents and children don't see each other as much as they could is simply because of the huge array of activities that many children do. It can be easy to run a parental taxi service, shuttling children from judo to football to piano lesson to competitive origami, and so on.

'Family Night'

Can you rearrange those activities to keep one night clear every week to have a 'Family Night'? Make a commitment to always leave work on time that night, and gather the family together. Ideas don't have to be expensive - in fact, you can have a competition to see who can come up with the best free activity. Try this idea from Sue Carter, winner of Care for the Family's National Family Week competition:

"We have a lovely yellow Mr Owl money box, and we put our own 'wishes' of what we would like to do as a family on small pieces of paper (10 each). We fold them up and post them in the money box. We then pick one of the folded up pieces of paper out of Mr Owl with someone's wish on and then we do it as a family. Ideas need not cost a lot of money.

"We have ideas such as: play board games or cards; walk in the woods; visit an airport to watch planes; go for a bike ride; cook cakes for each other; go to the beach; rock pooling; hunt crabs; collect special shells or pebbles; have a picnic at the local lake or beauty spot; challenge each other to a Wii game or similar; decorate a stone each; paint or draw together; do exercises together, e.g. sit ups, press ups, balancing, stretching, etc; play Twister; play blow football, etc, etc. This is a regular activity and we take turns picking out the next wish from Mr Owl."

'Family Night' is just one way you can create some time for your family. (We often recommend married couples try to set apart another night as a 'date night' for just the two of them - if two nights is too much, how about alternating date nights with family nights every other week?)

The key to spending more time with our families is making the deliberate decision to take the opportunities that come along - to turn time together into 'together time'. By spending time with our families we can build stronger relationships with our children, grow closer together as a family, and create memories that can be treasured for a lifetime. And that's got to be worth making time!

Read '7 ideas for creating lasting family memories' here.

2009