Do you ever feel as though you see the back of your kid’s smartphones more than you see their actual faces? You’re probably not alone. With many parents, technology can very often cause divisions in your family and take away from feeling like a unit that is connected through strong bonds.
Bringing your family closer together can be tough. With technology being such a major part of our lives it can be just as difficult for parents to break away from the digital habits that cause your family to ignore each other.
Cutting Back On Screen Time
Sit down as a family and discuss your relationships with technology. Before you do so, try and research the negative impacts that your digital lives can have of your everyday existence, There are many articles that may be beneficial in supporting your family as you move to more productive and less invasive uses of these devices.
You will need to frame the conversation in a positive way so that nobody feels attacked. Often, as adults, the way that we use social media can be as much of a problem as our children. Admitting this openly will help your cause, and coming to an agreement where you all work on finding ways of using your phones less and engaging more will be helpful. It should be made clear that you are not necessarily stopping using phones and technology, as they can be very useful. You are just trying to fix your relationship with them in order to improve the way that you communicate with one another.
Finding Ways Of Spending Time Together
There are many things that you can do as a family, from nights playing board games to days out. Creating rules around smartphones when you are doing these activities will help to allow the opportunity for a greater connection to form.
Start with simple games that will need less attention. Things like basic dice games, or word games may be a good start. Brush up your skills with unscramble words and then move onto more complex games like scrabble.
Pick days out that you will all get something out of. If your kids feel as though they are being dragged around places that bore them, it will end up making them resent the days out. Having a plan will help everyone to engage fully with the activity at hand.
Making Memories
So often our memories these days are framed around creating perfectly Instagramable moments that we share but in thinking about social media popularity we forget to actually engage with the activity. Learning to live in the present is something that you and your family should try to work on together, and avoiding a constant attachment to technology is something that may well help you to do that. The best memories are not necessarily the ones that you have photos to connect to, they may be memories centered around so many other things, but fundamentally they should be focused on each other.
