Blessings from Work and Wholesome Recreational Activities

Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives. Hawkins, Dollahite and Draper 2012. Ch. 21 The Meanings and Blessings of Family Work by Bahr, Manwaring, Loveless and Bahr. Ch. 22 Wholesome Family Recreation: Building Strong Families, Widmer & Taniguchi

 

         The blessings that come from a family working and playing together cannot be underestimated. Our family’s greatest joys came from working and playing together. Working together can be compared to being on a sports team. Every person is needed and appreciated to get the job done. Even though everyone’s skills and abilities may vary a little bit, each person makes an important contribution. Gordon B. Hinckley listed families working together as one of four things that could “in a generation or two” turn society’s “moral values” around. One of the reasons that work brings so many blessings to a family is because it allows each person to fill another’s needs, it teaches us to love and serve one another, rather than just be focused on oneself. When children work side by side with their parents, it builds a foundation of caring and strengthens bonds. Performing relatively mundane tasks together, like preparing dinner, fosters unity. Elder Russell M. Nelson said: “The home is the great laboratory of love. There the raw chemicals of selfishness and greed are melded in the crucible of cooperation to yield compassionate concern and love for one another.

      Wholesome recreation can be met in a variety of ways.  Our free time should be used wisely and seen as an opportunity to promote growth and strengthen families. The best activities are planned with a purpose. Sometimes that purpose might be to strengthen the family and foster memories. Other times, the activity might be to stretch the individuals, by challenging them with something new.  Too much leisure time today is being spent on entertainment from iPod, tweets and Facebook. As a result, families are spending less and less time together. Another danger is ‘overscheduling’ our children with too much involvement in sports, and extracurricular activities. Too many of these ‘individual’ activities will take away from opportunities to bond as a family. We should also be careful not to engage in too many ‘escapist’ type activities, such as watching TV and surfing the web. Research has shown that adolescents who identify healthy identities by engaging in challenging outdoor activities such as rock climbing, backpacking or fishing are less likely to engage in delinquent behaviors. Parent child connections are fostered when