How to Spend More Time with Family When Staying at Home

Those who spend a lot of time staying at home - whether that be working in the house, taking time off your job or having a stay at home holiday – might find it hard to know what to do with family in order to increase valued time together.

With distractions all around, children playing in their rooms or glued to television screens, finding mutual interests is key to this.

The possibilities are endless when you start to think about it, but these four activities are a fantastic place to start for finding that quality time with loved ones.

Crafts

Crafts are an excellent idea for those looking to spend some quiet time together doing something productive. Starting children from a young age with crafts gets their creativity flowing and means they might be more likely to want to continue doing such activities with you as they grow up.

This activity is not only useful for sitting down and creating something together, building a bond, but it is also a brilliantly environmentally friendly pastime. Crafting uses little to no electricity and you can often use materials made from recycled and reclaimed paper or plastic. Some crafting materials are even edible.

Baking

Making something edible is an activity that forms emotional connections between friends and family. The process of planning a baking session, buying, and preparing ingredients, making the item, and then sitting down to eat it together is a shared experience that brings people closer together.

Baking recipes are readily available online, with the only complication being the unusual measurements used in instructions from the UK. Once you know that conversions between cups and grams are also easy to find online, you should be good to go.

Games

A lot of the time competition, strangely, actually brings people together. Finding games that you can play with family members allows you to switch off from the outside world and focus on having fun with, and of course getting the better of, those close to you. Games tables, summarized at airhockeygeek.com, are a superb, always-ready games option. From foosball to billiards and pool tables, picking up the ball or cue and challenging a family member to a swift game is excellent for impromptu time together.

Exercise

Exercising together is perhaps not as normalized as it should be. Scientific evidence shows that exercise boosts positivity, by oxygenating the brain and generating new neurons in the hippocampus: the part of the brain that manages emotions and memory. Sharing this with somebody you love will enforce and create memory together, while lifting each other’s spirits and motivating each other to work out better and harder.

Setting aside exercise time in a schedule will help you stick to a routine, while making a space to do it at home will make it much more convenient than having to go to a gym. This is possible through converting a room in your house or, if you’re pushed for space, working out in a nearby park.