15 Meaningful Bonding Activities You Can Try With Your Children

Between school, work and keeping the family afloat, sometimes it is tough for mother-children activities to come front and center. In order to help you keep that bond strong, we looked around and found 15 of the very best ideas. Whether your child is five or 15, here are great bonding activities to do with kids at home.

1. Eat dinner together as a family

If there is just one change you can make at this time, you may want to prioritize having dinner together as a family as often as you can. Not only does it help you bond together as a family, as this CNN article reports, there is mounting evidence that kids who eat regular meals with their families do better in school, are more healthy and less likely to smoke, drink or get involved in drugs. Additionally, there is evidence to show that you as the parent can ward off stress by making time for family meals, and while saving money in the process.

2. Read together

Get a library card and make it a point to go to the library often to ensure you have a constant supply of books at home. Set aside a few minutes each day as family reading time – where you read for your kids (if they are younger) or the kids read by themselves while you catch up on some books yourself.

3. Travel together

Vacations are a great way to let go, relax and connect. They also give kids the necessary exposure. Experiencing a new culture, food, and way of life can help to shape a kid thinking.

4. Go on picnics/short escapes/camping

While vacations are a great way to bond with your family, vacations are expensive too. Besides, there are only so many days you can take off from work to go on a vacation. In between vacations, including picnics, stay-cations, and short camping trips to continue getting short doses of downtime bonding.

5. Plan things together

Be it vacations, chores or after-school activities, make your plans together as a family. Including kids in the planning shares the ownership of whatever you are doing with them, and that lets them enjoy and behave voluntarily. You can use a dry erase board, a notebook or one of these handy hi-tech planners to help you along the way.

6. Create family traditions

Family traditions are a great way to create a ritual that is uniquely yours and has an incredible power to tie the family together. Pull some from your/your partner’s family as you were growing up or create something new.

7. Create and talk about family stories

Like family traditions, the stories of each family are unique and not only can they bring the family together, but they can act as a timeless bridge between generations.

Make a conscious effort to create your family stories, rich with details about places, people and specific circumstances and repeat them over and over at dinner tables and holiday parties. The stories could be as simple as “I remember the night you were born like it was yesterday…” or “You know your great-grandma actually came to Nigeria on a boat. In those days…” and so on.

8. Scrapbooks and photo albums

There is a great compliment to your family traditions, family vacations, and family stories — not to mention the good old everyday moments! The key is to make sure that instead of letting the photos stay trapped in your memory card or the hard drive forever, you free them into the “real” world in the form of scrapbook or photo albums.

If your kids are old enough, create your scrapbook or photo albums together for additional bonding time. And then, on a rainy day or when you/the kids are feeling a little blue, pull out the scrapbooks/photo albums and thumb through them together with tons of “Remember when we…” conversations.

9. Cook/bake together

Whenever possible, enlist your kids to help in the cooking process. It is a little bit of extra work (OK, a LOT of extra work), especially the cleanup, but the effort is so worth it.

The kitchen is the heart of a house and spending time together in the kitchen makes it so much easier to create the kind of mellow memories that last a lifetime.

Additionally, cooking with kids has a host of other benefits. They help kids develop a love for cooking and healthy eating habits that last a lifetime. If you take the time to point out the chemistry behind food and the math of measuring out recipes, you can even give them an academic edge. It even helps them learn the value of planning and develop self-confidence.

10. Build a family garden

Whether you have a large backyard, or a window sill full of planters, planning, and grooming for a family garden is a great way to bond with the kids. The time you spend together, the opportunities to talk and teach, the joy of growing your own dinner and the million photo ops – need I say more?

11. Become nature enthusiasts together

It’s time to ditch the screens, big and small, and enjoy the great outdoors — together.

12. Have scheduled family movie nights

Ah, the joy of cuddling up to a nice little movie. It always for you to not only spend quality time with your kids but also to hear their thought on life situations and their views on the plot, actors and so on.

13. Have scheduled family game days/nights

Bundle up the kids and take them for a round of mini-golf or bowling, or break out the board games – the key is to put it on schedule and doing it consistently.

14. Be entrepreneurs together

Set up a retail stand, engage their help in putting together a garage sale, sell handmade crafts, put up a cupcake stand, you get the idea! Whichever activity you choose provides you a great way to talk about sticky topics like money, goal setting, planning, pricing and a host of other entrepreneurial lessons that last for life.

15.Learn a new skill together

Learning a new skill with your kids not only helps to educate them but also strengthens the bond between your children. It is also a good opportunity to know your children’s interests and spend quality time with them

Pick 2-3 activities from the list above that are interesting to you and your family, but you do not do right now. And over the course of the next few weeks, make an intentional effort to try it out!