How to Build Stronger Family Ties When You’re Staying at Home

Everyone benefits from strong family ties. Now is a perfect time to work on making some memories with your closest family members. When situations call for social distancing outside of our home, we need to do the opposite within the home.

Now, more than ever, we need to engage with those living in our homes. We may be together for a while, but look at it is way, it is a wonderful opportunity to create some good family memories and positive interactions together.
Healthy relationships build trust, respect, and emotional stability. A study by Harvard University found that close ties can improve your health and increase longevity.

Staying home can be isolating, especially when we hole ourselves up in different rooms than our other family members. Make an effort to spend quality time together. Sitting in the same room on different electronic devices is not quality family time. Put down the elections, join together in one room, and do activities together.

Your family bonding becomes stronger when you spend time doing activities together.

Below are 10 ideas you can do with your family and loved ones.

1. Create Photo Albums

If you are younger than the baby boomers, you probably have lots of photos but have no physical albums. Now is the time to flip through your photos and reminisce. Physical, tangible photo albums are always cherished.

Look back at the past five years of your life. Were there meaningful trips that you took as a family or major life events such as a baptism, marriage, or birth of a child that happened in the past few years? Do you have photos of the event stored somewhere digitally such as social media, on your phone, or on a computer? If you do and you want to savor those memories for years to come, then you may want to think about creating some photo albums.

This is a great activity for a family of all ages. You can approach the project in one of several ways. You can print the photos and put them in your own physical photo album, you can make a scrapbook, or you can create an online photo album.

Whichever choice you make, the family can be involved in the process. I like tangible photos and traditional albums or basic scrapbooking. Whichever method you decide to do you can involve the whole family in the creation process.

Scrapbooking as a family can be fun too. It does not have to be over the top either. We do it with scrapbooking paper, photos, and bits of paper to write captions for the photos. The family uses photo-safe glue to secure the photos to paper that each person selected and then we slide the pages into the clear page holders of the album. Albums are easy to create using this method and this method still allows for personalization of each page.

To do a photo album project, simply print out the photos that I want to use for the album. Organize the photos by year or by occasion. I printed all of my photos from the trip to New York. Cut strips of colored paper and use these strips to write a sentence of two. I usually put a strip with details on each page, but not every photo because that becomes more tedious. This is the time to uncover your creative juices.

Having everyone select and do a page or two and write the details about what the photos they selected make it even more meaningful. Everyone can add his own special touch to the memories. Having every family member participate in putting the photos into the book and writing a few sentences for the photos that they are putting into the book helps to make it a shared family experience.

It is also a wonderful time for revisiting the occasion that you are creating the album about. For example, doing an album as a family for a trip you all took together provides us with plenty to talk about as we go through the photos.

2. Cook and Share Meals Together

Make dinner preparation more fun by joining forces in the kitchen. It’s a fun, low-pressure way to interact, and if you’re cooking with kids, it’s a great way to get them involved in making healthy food choices.

Staying at home is a great opportunity to cook or bake together as a family. If you have special recipes that you would like to teach your children, now is a great time to do that.
If you have grandma’s apple pie recipe that has been passed down for generations, it would be a nice time to make it with your children. You can use the time to talk about your grandparents, the heritage of your family, and perhaps the meaning of the recipe to you.

After you make the special dessert or dish with your children, it will then have special meaning to them too. They will be able to recall the time that they made that special concoction with you and the memories you made from that day. No screens, no outside interruptions, just some time to talk. Not sure what to talk about? Share three good things that happened that day. They can be anything – a kind word from a friend, a joke, a small achievement – or a big one! It’s all about sharing and connecting.

3. Play Games Together

Want to get everyone off their screens and interacting in a fun, low-pressure way? Bring out the board games. Chess for two, word games for three, or Monopoly for six, it’s a great way to bond. And it’s a great way for grandparents and grandchildren to connect, too.

I come from a family that plays games together. Even as adults, we love to play Boggle, Scrabble, and a variety of card games.

For very young children, you can start with games like Snakes and Ladders. From there, you can move onto slightly more challenging games for their minds like Uno and Monopoly.

This is an opportune time to share the values and facts of life. You can teach kids about sportsmanship, determination, humility, and leadership. You can share real-life experiences with family members to discuss and draw lessons from. The entertainment, laughter, and lessons are priceless!

4. Put on a Show or Play

Family talent shows, putting on a play, and putting on a musical show does not require a massive audience. Your family can do the show and record it on your phone. It doesn’t need an audience other than you all to make it memorable. It is the experience of collaborating, planning, and executing the show together that makes it special.

My parents use to have an impromptu variety show. Each kid is called and can present whatever talent he or she wants to show. On one holiday, we organized a mini piano concert for my niece to entertain us.

You can organize an art class, or a play, or a puppet show. Each family member can then play multiple roles and it opens the door to more characters. Just imagine how fun this would be.

Don’t forget to video it, because I can guarantee that your kids are going to be interested in seeing their own performance. Such a great way to make family memories and it doesn’t cost much!

5. Get active together.

Being active encourages good, life-long habits. We’re all familiar with the problem of childhood obesity. Most often family time is sedentary time. By using the family time to do a physical activity together, you encourage your child to exercise.

Run a race with your partner, join your mom in her Zumba session at home, or head out on a weekend bike ride together. It is no secret that in many ways, exercise or fitness is great for family bonding. You can organize a beach volleyball team with siblings and their spouses and get everyone from nephews to grandparents involved in fitness events.

It also helps ingrain in children what is normal and healthy habits to keep, such as making physical activity a priority. If they see parents make family time and exercise time a priority together, they’re more likely to do the same.

Physical activities are great family bonding time and a greater opportunity to know each other well.

When watching a movie or playing a game, you’re often not engaging with each other or watching each other’s actions. With family exercise, however, you’re paying close to attention to how each child and parent acts and reacts.

You learn what motivates your child the most as well as how they work within a team. As a parent, this gives you the opportunity to encourage good behavior and fix any bad habits that may be forming as part of natural development.

6. Plant a Garden

Make your yard a project. If you do not have a yard, start creating a patio garden or an indoor garden. Planting a garden and teaching your child how to tend to plants is a wonderful bonding opportunity. You are teaching them real-life skills and the value of having to produce your own food. You are creating memories that will last a lifetime.

If you ask a person if they had a garden when they were a kid, everyone knows the answer. It is not something you have to think too hard about. Why? Because gardening is an experience. Why not experience it with your family too?

If you don’t know much about gardening, then you can learn with your child as you go through the process.

7. Host Your Own Family Party

Just because you are home and can’t have a big party with lots of friends doesn’t mean you can’t still have a party. A party with your family is fun if you decide to make it fun.

Pick a theme to really make it an event. An 80’s themed dance party is sure to get the whole family laughing and smiling. Pull out your best 80’s looking clothing, rat your hair to get that special 80’s look, put on some 1980’s tunes, and teach your kids some dance moves from the 80’s.

Having a dance party doesn’t require many people. A party of two is still a party! Make some memories and perhaps show your kids what things were like when you were a kid. They will certainly remember an 80’s themed dance party for many years to come.

Weekends spent at home don’t mean that they can’t be fun. Make the weekend special even if you have to be home. For example, Friday can be a family movie night or family game night. Then Saturday night can be your 80’s dance party. Let your creativity go to work!