Make Spending Time with Your Family Fun

By now, your New Year's resolutions are just a nagging whisper in the back of your mind. Sure, you meant to exercise and you did for three weeks and you'll get back to it, but not this week. And you meant to organize all your closets and plan all your cooking menus, but maybe later this year. And eating right? That lasted until the night you worked late, and frozen pizza saved the evening for you.

Spending more time with your family probably ranked up there pretty high on your to-do list, too. It does for most people. After all, the popular saying is that on your deathbed, you won't wish you spent more time at the office. Or the gym. Or organizing your stuff. You will wish you spent more time with those people you love.

So just to inspire you to keep the goal of spending more time with your family at the top of your list this year, here are some ways to keep it fun. After all, having fun with your family has a lot of benefits. Some of the benefits of having fun with your family are:

**Reduced sibling rivalry

**Better grades for school aged kids

**Less whining from your kids

**Getting to know your children as people

**Helping your kids make better relationship choices

Spending more time as a family actually has health benefits, too. If you are active as a family, the whole family is liable to exercise more and keep it up longer. Eating together as a family usually also translates into better nutrition for all of you.

I've listed relatively easy, and cheap or almost free ways to have fun. The best fun doesn't come with sticker shock on the other end.

Fingerpaint the floor. Only if it's linoleum of course. Make sure you are using washable fingerpaint, because acrylic and oil paints are probably not going to come off that easy. And while you think your three year old is a gifted artist, you might get tired of the masterpiece in a few weeks. But think how much fun it is to smear paint all over the floor, and then pop the kids in the bath afterwards!

Put on some music and dance. Kids automatically do this. What makes it a fun family activity is you doing it too. You can even play some of your music (hey, the 80's had the best dance music, right?) and show them how it's done. Or get instructional videos or DVDs and teach everyone how to square dance.

Build 'em up, and knock 'em down. Show off your skill in building a house of cards, or a serpentine trail of dominoes. When everyone gets involved, who knows what heights or twists these activities will take?

Go to the park. I know, you probably take your kids there, anyway. But this is family fun, remember? That means you need to go down the twisty slide; climb the rock wall; see how high you can swing; or hang upside down from the monkey bars. Make sure the playground equipment is safe for adults, of course, and then have fun!

Go tubing. This is so much fun that I can't wait until my kids are old enough to go. You show up at a tubing rental place, rent a tube (big old inner tube), a bus takes you upstream, and you lazily float downstream for five or ten miles where a bus meets you and takes you back to your vehicle. This is usually done in shallow water, not to be confused with white water tubing or anything. Make sure your kids are in life jackets and you have packed sunscreen.

Go wild at a toy store. We figured this out when our oldest was about a year old. We didn't tell her we'd been doing it before she was even born. Go into a toy store and try out every toy. Push every button. There is nothing like a whole shelf of Chicken Dance Elmos in motion. This can easily take an hour or two and won't cost anything unless your toddler falls in love with something and you can't say "no".

Have family bowling night. You probably haven't bowled since high school. But to a five year old, it's all brand new. Kids of any age will get a kick out of you wearing funky bowling shoes and showing off your high kick spin ball or whatever your signature bowling move was. A lot of places have lanes with gutter guards so children can actually score some of the time. Hint: your score gets better with gutter guards, too! And bowling alleys with black light and loud music will score big points with your preteens. Family bowling night usually costs just a few dollars.

Don't forget board games and jigsaw puzzles. Really, it's amazing what you learn about your child when you relax and put together a puzzle or play a board game. Sharing an activity like that unlocks the communication gateway with just about any age child.

It takes conscious effort to slow down and enjoy each member of the family. We are always in a hurry, one eye on the clock, half our mind on the agenda, and rushing from work to home to other activities. But spending more time having fun with your family will never be time wasted.