25 Feb Family Goals to Make This Year Amazing
New Year’s resolutions can start to lose their inspiration fairly quickly in the year. If you’re still on board and making progress with your goals — go on you! If you need a nudge in the right direction, consider these family goals from Whole Family Living.
Have Meals Together
This is probably the most basic goal any family can establish, but I can’t tell you how difficult it is for many families to put this in place. Having regular meals together is a challenge for many of the families I meet. If you ask most parents, they’ll say that family mealtime ties in deeply with their family values. But they’ll then express how difficult it is to get everyone to sit down to eat at the same time.
Having meals together doesn’t have to be complicated, though. Set a goal with your family to start having dinner together one or two nights per week, and to eat together on weekends when schedules may be more relaxed.
The time spent at the dinner table has been shown to have many positive benefits for kids including boosting academic performance and keeping them out of trouble. So sit down and break bread as a family.
Place Value on Experiences, Not Things
Nowadays it can be easy to go down the rabbit hole of accumulating more material things. It seems that someone is always posting about something new they have or tried. And perhaps your children come home and tell you stories about the new toys their friends at school have received. If we’re not careful, we could quickly get caught up in the mindset that more is better. But this is a huge mistake.
Set a goal for your family to start shifting the emphasis from things you want to have, to things you want to do or experience together as a family.
Create a Family Budget
The decisions we make with each dollar on a daily basis can either add up to a lifetime of security or struggling to make ends meet. While most of us know the term budget, not many of us have really worked to establish one. But when you think about it, creating a budget is just as important to your family as it is to a multi-million dollar company. After all, if you’re an average family that is about how much money you will likely earn during your lifetime. Learning how to make the most of your family’s earnings and assets will be the key to creating financial wellness for your family. But how do you achieve this? This is where the budget comes in. Start actively working on a budget, and review it each month. Use the family budget as a tool to help keep your family finances on track and allow you to build wealth in many areas of life, not just the bank account.
Do A Service Project Together
Teaching kids to contribute to their community at a young age is a lesson they will carry for life. Is your family passionate about a particular cause? Identify a community service project that you would like to work on together as a family. Whether your family is passionate about protecting animals, helping those with special needs, the environment or something else, there are numerous ways you can get involved.
A few places to look include your local Social Services Agencies, hospitals, churches or organizations like American Red Cross or Goodwill. Find a project that aligns with your family’s common passions and helps your community at the same time. You and your children will grow from these experiences, strengthen family bonds, and feel a sense of reward by giving back.
Start a New Family Hobby
If your family members tend to be scattered and involved in their own activities or hobbies most of the time, it may be time to start a new family hobby to bring everyone together.
Having a family hobby is a great goal for any family. It’s a way to get everyone working towards a common goal and having fun! This could be learning a new skill together, doing sports together, or doing something at home like starting a family garden. These activities allow your family members to gather in a fun atmosphere while reducing the amount of time spent on digital devices. A family hobby can also be a great tool for relieving stress, improving communication skills, learning something new, or growing an existing skill together.
No matter how you choose to spend your time as a family, remember it’s the people who are the most important part of everything you do together!