in

A day of family togetherness

Once I was at a dinner with a Scottish client and he shared a very interesting experience within his family. They had come up with the concept of a family day. On a family day, one family member got to choose what activity they wanted to do and everyone in the family did that activity together. It did not matter if it was the most interesting or the most boring activity, but everyone had to do it together. This concept sounded fascinating to me and I decided to broach the subject at home

Some skepticism from my wife was balanced by my daughters’ enthusiasm and we all agreed to give it a try. Vrinda, my eldest daughter, had a first go and we went to a theme park as per her request. Now the real fun started as she started to influence her younger sister, Vaanya about what she should do on her day. Vaanya also showed her generosity on one occasion by letting Vrinda choose the activity on her turn. On my turn, I chose to paint the garden fence and everyone loved the activity. Family day started to become a hot topic in our household and we all looked forward to our days. We looked forward to spending more time with each other instead of just what the activity was.

We evolved the concept in various ways. When we had lesser time available over the weekend, we started doing half days. Sometimes we had guest days, often to give choice to a visiting grandparent or friend. Sometimes I would use it as a threat of punishment that I will choose that we will study together on my day.

Like everything else, this concept sustained in our family for about 6 months. We got busy and stopped doing this as much. But we still think of those days fondly and feel like we need to get back to doing more of that.

……………………………….

Did you find something useful in this article? If yes, please do share it with your friends.

Do you have any questions or comments?  We would love to hear from you, please submit your comments below.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are personal views of the author.

Report

What do you think?

122 Points
Upvote

Leave a Reply

GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings