Wholesome Family Recreation:Building Strong Families

The chapter in the book we are reading for my class called The Family, starts off by saying, “Recreation can be easy. We all know how to find fun things to do.”  I think this is true. There are so many options nowadays of things to do that will entertain us and our families. But are all of the choices good for us and the quality of our lives? 

Think about the time you have. Now think about the extra time you have where you might be able to get out and do an activity or do something other than housework, yard work, school work etc. Are you using that time wisely? Are you using that time to strengthen your family or our marriage? 

In order to make recreational time meaningful we have to prepare. It’s not just going to happen without us making a plan or coming up with ideas of things we want to do during our free time. I know for me, all too often I get side tracked by social media or Netflix and now I’ve wasted that time that could have been spent building memories with my children. 

We read this week, “Wholesome family recreation can help us strengthen our relationship and reduce negative emotional and spiritual consequences. Wholesome recreation strengthens families.” I feel a little bit jipped about this because as a single mother co-parenting with a dad who only has the kids on the weekends, I get all the time where they are at school, have homework, lessons, activities to go to during the week and he gets the weekends where they can actually go out and do fun things so to my kids, especially the youngest, it seems like its more fun to be with dad and mom is not fun at all because we never get to go out and do fun things. It really makes it hard. Hopefully someday they will understand that thats just how it was, mom got the time during the week so they could go to school etc. and dad got the time where there weren’t so many time constraints and there was more free time to do other things. 

Think of the memories you have with your family when you were the happiest. Did it matter how much money you had or what you were doing? No, what mattered is that you were together with your family and you were all having an experience together building memories that will last forever. 

“Studies who’s that families who regularly engage in core leisure activities depicted by common everyday, low-cost, relatively accessible, and often home-based activity that many families do frequently, such as playing board games or playing catch in the yard have higher levels of family cohesiveness than those families who do not regularly engage in such activities.”

There are so many opportunities in the work in which we can find wholesome family recreation. We must be able to know which activities constitute good positive opportunities to have with our families that will be meaningful and create lasting memories. Going on a cruise once a year but not spending time together as family for the rest of the year is not the way to build a strong family. 

A good suggestion would be to get your family together and make a list of all the things everyone wants to do together as a family. Build a bucket list and start from the top and check things off as you do them together. What a wonderful way to incorporate everyones ideas and have fun doing each activity. 


Hawkins, A., Dollahite, D., & Draper, T. (2012). Successful marriages and families. Provo, Utah: BYU Studies and School of Family Life, Brigham Young University.