Refuse to make quality family time a pastime

If you have seen me recently, you might notice a slightly tanner Bryce smiling back at you. Now, I know what you are thinking, and no I didn?t join the masses in the tanning beds or lather up with self-tanning lotion. Actually, I recently returned from a trip (an all too brief trip, in my opinion) to Zephyrhills, Fla. This trip was out of necessity as my grandfather spends the winter in Florida, and needed someone to drive him south so that he would have a vehicle to use while he was there.

At first, I was dreading the 17-hour cross-country drive, but conceded in going as I knew my mother needed a navigator and co-pilot to travel with her as my grandfather doesn?t like driving in lots of traffic. Despite my melancholy attitude about the impending hours I would face cramped up in a car, after setting off I began to realize that the drive and hours spent with my mother and grandfather wouldn?t be all that bad after all.

Something that trip taught me (besides never choosing to willingly drive through Atlanta during rush hour the day before Thanksgiving) was that quality time with family is good for the soul. Now don?t get me wrong, my family is not much different than most families. We fight, disagree and sometimes annoy each other, but at the end of the day we don?t stop loving each other and that gives me a deep peace.

Nowadays, so much of the quality time that we could be spending with our families is replaced with television, work, video games, Internet surfing, texting and extra curricular activities, that we rarely leave room for simple, personal conversations with each other. If you think about your own day-to-day, ask yourself how much time did you actually spend conversing with your child, parent or spouse? If you aren?t sure, maybe it wasn?t much time at all. If you do know, and you already make time to cut out distractions and just talk, keep it up!

As a daughter, I have a deep, profound desire to be known by my parents. I want them to spend time getting to know me and ask me about my day and how I feel about things. Wives and husbands want essentially the same thing from their spouse, just like parents want their kids to always want to spend time with them, no matter how old they get. So, why have so many of us let worldly things get in the way of something that is such an ingrained part of who we are as human beings?

The answer, I think, is because we let ourselves believe that family is forever and that quality time with them can wait. Unfortunately, this belief is totally false. Our family members aren?t always going to be around and quality time with them is vital in shaping a person into who they are.

Kids learn how to act and how to live by their parents? leadership. If parents aren?t spending time shaping, molding and influencing their kids for the better, the world is doing it for them and is absolutely not doing a great job at it. For children, parents can be a wealth of healthy knowledge, wisdom, and advice, while a solid relationship with your spouse can do wonders in teaching your kids respect, love and friendship as they watch their mom and dad live by example.

As the end of the year is drawing near, take some time to reevaluate your social life with your family. If it needs some work, make the upcoming year the year of change for you and your loved ones.

Remember, change isn?t always easy or quick, but being the one to take the first step in effecting positive change in your family is important. You may never know the vastness of good a little healthy conversation can do in the grand scheme of this crazy thing called life.