Quality Family Time
Our Family Garden Needs Tending
iPhone Photo by Janis Brett Elspas, MommyBlogExpert.com
The current Social Moms and Cottonelle blogging challenge got me thinking. Often times, the smallest little changes we make in doing things can make a whole lot of difference. So, here's my list of small changes that I think that can make family life exponentially better .
1. Now that my own four kids are teens (triplets, age 13-1/2 and big brother, age 15) are growing up so fast I've decided that this is my number one small change. Make more time for fun with your kids by spending at least 30 minutes a day getting outside to play together. Do something physical that you and your child both enjoy, such as bicycling or chalking on the sidewalk which I'm planning to do with my girls this afternoon.
2. Second on my list is choosing my battles with my children carefully. Teens are not always easy to deal with, so I'm going to try and let them each "win" one more fight each day, that I would normally argue with them. My kids are all teenagers, so we have frequent conflicts throughout the day, so I'll sure have a lot of chances to choose which disagreement to lose, LOL.
3. All my children are book worms and read well beyond their grade levels. Nevertheless they all enjoy when me and/or my hubbie read to them one-on-one at bedtime. I've been devoting 30 minutes to this each evening, but since they enjoy it so much (and so do I, actually) I'm committing to increasing my nightly reading time to 45 minutes at minimum and even longer if we are both not too tired.
4. Plant all the seeds we have in our garden, including the ones we have left over from last year. That means expanding our vegetable and flower gardens considerably this spring and getting the kids to help me. The little change this growing season is that I'd like to plant more different types of lettuce and some heirloom tomatoes, plus a couple of exotic flowers I've never grown before. That way we have lots of fresh, organically, truly locally-grown produce all summer long as well as fresh-cut flowers from our yard.
5. My kids and I cook together in the kitchen occasionally and we definitely enjoy spending time together that way. So, why not do it even more often? With that said, another small change I'd like to make is to get each of my kids into the kitchen to cook with me individually, at least once a week.
6. Lastly, as a mom who sometimes yells too much about the kids not doing all their chores, I'd like to try cutting back on my rants. I may not be perfect, but the other small change I'd like to make is to make more of an effort to be more patient with my kids and hubbie, even when they are slacking on their chores. It's a tiny change, but I'd like to help them more with their chores so that we get the job done together, without playing verbal volleyball too.
These six ideas I'm proposing, definitely are small changes. But, if I can live up to them all -- even in part -- I think they have the potential to improve our family atmosphere in some very large ways.
If you could make one small change at your house to create a closer family, what would it be? Please leave a comment.
FTC Disclosure: I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Cottonelle blogging program, for a gift card worth $25. For more information on how you can participate too, click here. MommyBlogExpert did not receive any payment or other compensation related to this post. See complete FTC Disclosure information that appears at the bottom of MommyBlogExpert's main page and at the bottom of every individual post on this blog, including this one.
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