Outline: Planning Family Bonding Activities | Family Bonding Activities – Seasonal Bucket List – Family Scrapbook – Gift of Time – Volunteer – Play King/Queen – Gratitude Journal | Why Family Bonding Activities? | Final Thoughts

Are you feeling stumped about how to bring fun and excitement to your home through family bonding activities? The best family bonding activities are easy to apply yet mighty in promoting connection. These fun family bonding ideas will make your family connected.  

Getting stuck on the idea that the best parent-child bonding activities must be over-the-top experiences or costly vacations is easy. But how exciting or expensive the activity is, does not determine the emotional value of time spent together. Sometimes, low-budget and casual time spent together might become the best family bonding activities of all!

Why is family bonding necessary? Several studies demonstrate that activities that promote connection within the family improve emotional wellness, academic performance, and healthy self-esteem. 

The Basics for Planning Family Bonding Activities

If you post family bonding questions, searching the internet will give you hundreds of similar articles about hosting family game nights, watching movies, eating meals, doing crafts, or going on a hike together. These are great suggestions. But not unique…

Let’s be honest. You likely have already tried these. But you are searching for new and exciting family bonding ideas. 

Generating easy yet powerful family bonding ideas does not need to be complicated. They also do not need to revolve only around holidays. Thinking about things your family enjoys doing together and building upon those experiences is a great place to start. 

Try new things, but don’t force your family into an identity you are not. If you don’t love the outdoors, do not plan a family bonding activity of a long hike through the forest! Forcing such experiences will have the opposite impact, with complaining, feeling disconnected, and defeated. 

Six Creative Family Bonding Activities You Can Try

Here are a few creative ideas to get you thinking about how to plan the best family bonding activities:

1. Create a Seasonal Bucket List

One of the best family bonding ideas is to start each season with a bucket list of activities your family enjoys doing or wants to try. It is best to choose activities related to traditional seasonal experiences, such as:

• Apple picking in the fall
• Sledding in the winter
• Or going to the beach in the summer. 

You can make the creation of a list a family bonding activity as well. Also, you can make your favorite snacks, sit together and brainstorm ideas. However, be sure to include one experience selected by each family member. 

2. Create a Family Scrapbook

The plan is to take lots of pictures doing family activities together throughout the year. You can transform those photos from your phone into something meaningful! Afterward, order prints and buy a scrapbook. 

Finally, schedule a family bonding night near the end of the year. And create a new family memory by reviewing the photos of the family bonding activities you did throughout the year and creating a scrapbook. 

Have each family member make a page of their favorite activities. This creates the opportunity to spend time together, going through each year’s scrapbook together and reminiscing about the times spent bonding together. 

3. Give the Gift of Time

During the holidays, give each other the gift of time instead of only giving physical gifts. Have each family member choose one family bonding activity they want to do. These should be cheap and accessible. For example, it could be a family dance party or camp out in a tent in the backyard.

More importantly, with a good work-life balance, you too can give the gift of time and availability. Here’s how it works:

• Create a certificate that contains a gift of time for each family member.
• Each family member should write out what activities they want that time for.
• Throughout the year, the family should select a certificate randomly.
• The family will gift that experience to the family member who selected it. 
• The rules are that everyone has to do it. And everyone has to have fun!

4. Volunteer As a Family 

Each year, the family will select one organization to volunteer at together. It might be participating in a charity race or fostering shelter animals. Giving back to the community as a family unit will promote a sense of bonding and connection. 

We lead by example. Hence, offering opportunities for our children to experience empathy, gratitude, and giving is one of the most extraordinary parent-child bonding activities we can provide.

5. King/Queen for a Day

Make birthdays an experience in your home and express gratitude for that person being alive! On the day of their birth, treat each family member as royalty. They get to opt out of all chores (Mom, too!) and choose what to have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They also get to select one family bonding activity everyone must do!

6. Create a Gratitude Journal

Create a gratitude journal that the family contributes to together. Each night, around the dinner table, identify one thing each family member is thankful for. Perhaps there is one everyone agrees on. Have fun going back and looking at what you were grateful for each night on this day last year!

The Positive Family Bonding Mindset

1. Family Bonding Activities Can Quickly Become Family Traditions

Spending time together, laughing with one another, and making memories. These elements are what make family so crucial for our emotional wellness. 

So, what were some of your family traditions when you were a child? And what family bonding activities did your family engage in? Perhaps they included activities you did every holiday, family trips you took every summer, or watching sports together on the weekends. Use these memories to build family bonding opportunities for your family. 

2. Traditions Give Family Members Something To Look Forward To

Family traditions offer something far more critical and special. It gives us a  sense of security. We feel safe, connected, and loved. Family traditions are rituals that bring us together and remind us of our personal history. 

As family members pass away or move out of the home, those happy memories are refreshed when we carry on those traditions. 

3. Family Traditions Become a Source of Our Identity

Family traditions become a source of our identity. It defines where we have come from and help us form values. By creating opportunities for family bonding activities, you offer your children cultural and religious heritage. It helps to define where they come from. 

Final Thoughts

One of the most important things families do to stay connected is to spend time together. Creating opportunities for family bonding experiences promotes gratitude and affection for one another. 

Happiness within our personal life experiences is rooted in the foundation created by our family traditions and connections. Create possibilities today.

Live, love, take chances,

Melissa