Family unity is established and nurtured when the whole family joins together on creative projects. When working together, opportunities for communication open up and family members can gain a deeper understanding of each other. There’s lots of creative ways to build and sustain family unity. Here are just a few of them:
Get the Family Together in the Kitchen
The kitchen is often a gathering place for kids and parents. It’s a place where the whole family can work together preparing a meal or making fun snacks. Specific tasks will need to be assigned according to what’s appropriate for each child’s age. Cooking together is an ideal time to teach kids healthy eating habits. This way they can see what actually goes into their food. Cooking different cuisines is a good way to introduce everyone to new flavors.
Of course, the different types of foods that you may want to make with your children involved may depend on their ages. If you have children who are under two, it might be best to have them be near the preparation area but giving them their own ingredients that they can play with, chew on, and do whatever they want to—ingredients that won’t be used. For children who are age three to six, it might be best to have them be responsible for counting ingredients (how many apples that might be needed to make a pie or eggs that need to be cracked for an omelet). They can also be in charge of doing some basic cutting—with kid-friendly utensils. As children get older, they can be given more an more responsibility as you help them to build upon their culinary skills. By the time they’re six or seven, you may want to start teaching your little junior Masterchef how to work with a stove, along with some safety tips concerning that as well.
Create a Vision Board
Get the whole family together to brainstorm ideas for a vision board. It should have a central theme, such as family road trips and vacations that everyone would like to take. It could be a collage that includes goals from each family member. Those goals could be school related, work related, sports related or personal goals such as exercising more or losing weight. The board could include pictures or words that depict opportunities for the family to work together as volunteers in the community.
Get Creative with Repurposing
Teaching kids the importance of recycling and repurposing can be done in a fun way when creative crafts are used as a teaching tool. You could set up a collection location in the garage or basement for items such as empty bottles or cans, broken toys or old clothes. Set aside a family time and repurpose some of those items into something useful. Old clothes can become pet toys or beds, tote bags or wall art. There’s plenty of DIY projects online that you can do as a family using items that would otherwise be throw away.
Invite All the Relatives
To promote unity with your extended family, you could gather everyone together to create a family coat of arms. You don’t have to know all about your ancestors to create a coat of arms, you can simply create a design that reflects your family values and personalities. As a keepsake, you could look into getting T-shirts made. If you have a large extended family, you may need to solicit the help of a professional company, such as Absolute Screen Printing, to get enough shirts for everyone to wear. You may even want to start a fun tradition where everyone in the family, cousins and grandparents too, wear their shirts on a certain day every month.
Hopefully, the above ideas have helped you to start thinking about what you’re going to do to creatively unite your family. Remember, it’s all about learning and growing together.
