Does this sound like your house, or some variation of it? More and more families are spending less and less time together. Patti Herman, Executive Director of Prevent Child Abuse Wisconsin explains that this is unfortunate because ‘we know that positive time spent together as a family can strengthen the family and can help children be more resilient when faced with difficult situations in life.’

As the New Year begins, you and your family may want to consider making a resolution to be together more as a family. The challenge is in keeping this great idea from becoming one more broken New Year’s resolution. Keeping a New Year’s resolution can feel unattainable, especially for families experiencing the stress of the holidays. Like so many others making resolutions, families may lose track of the original goal and why it was important to them.

Prevent Child Abuse Wisconsin suggests the following to help you make—and stick to—your family togetherness resolution.

• Make sure it’s a resolution that all family members agree to. The resolution doesn’t stand a chance of success if any one of the family members isn’t willing to work at making it happen.
• Keep the resolution realistic and attainable. People often stray from their resolutions because the goal is too broad. Instead of saying, ‘we’re going to spend more time together as a family,’ try, ‘we’re going to sit down to dinner together once a week.’ By keeping it simple, the chances of reaching your goal increase dramatically.
• Decide together how you will choose the activities that you will do together. Will you take turns deciding what the activity will be on any given week? Will you have people write ideas on a piece of paper and put the papers in a jar and pull out one idea at the beginning of each week? Make sure everyone agrees with the process you’ll use and agrees to go along with the process.
• Have fun! This is the best way to get all family members to join in. Make activities enjoyable, and make sure everyone has a role and can participate. For example, everyone can help make dinner once a week. Whether you are preparing the food, setting the table, getting people seconds, clearing the table or doing the dishes, each part is important.
• Make some ‘rules’ about your time together. For example, you may decide as a family that nobody (that includes adults!) can take calls during the family time unless it’s an emergency. Or you may decide that the television will not be turned on during family time. Again, make sure everyone agrees ahead of time that they can live with the rules that all of you create.
• Make a point of saying something positive to each member of the family during your family time, something that will be reinforcing and that will make them more likely to look forward to the next family time. For example, ‘I didn’t know you were such a good card player, Sam’ or ‘Thanks for making such a great lunch, Emily.’
• Build in time for breaks. Set aside some time each week where everyone can do different things, and then perhaps have a family activity at night. Spending time apart may help your family get along better!

Keeping New Year’s resolution can be challenging. You may become frustrated and may even think about giving up. Remember, keeping your resolutions takes time and a lot of patience. If you find that you’ve let this family-time resolution lapse, talk to your family about how you could start it up again and what you could all do differently to make it work. All of your efforts will be worth it as you see your family grow closer together. Make this year count and whatever you do, have fun with one another!

Prevent Child Abuse Wisconsin is a statewide, nonprofit organization that builds community resources, provides training and public awareness, and carries out advocacy activities in order to strengthen child abuse prevention efforts in Wisconsin. Founded in 1978, Prevent Child Abuse Wisconsin is a state chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America. For more information, call 1-800-CHILDREN or visit www.preventchildabusewi.org.