Wise Investment
A Wise Investment: Benefits of Families Spending Time Together
The Family that Kicks together sticks together!
Spending time as a family is a wise investment. Children in families
that participate in activities together such as martial arts classes are
more likely to report having parents who show affection, and those with
involved parents tend to fare better in school and are less likely to
engage in risky behaviors.
Spending time in everyday family leisure activities is associated with greater emotional bonding within the family.
A family’s “core” leisure activities (those that are typically
everyday, low-cost, home-based activities such as playing board games,
playing in the yard, gardening and watching television together) were
related to the family’s cohesion (“the emotional bonding that family
members have toward one another”). Both a family’s “core” activities and
their “balance” activities (those that are novel experiences and
require a greater investment of time, effort, planning and money--such
as vacations, special events, and sports activities) were related to the
family’s ability to adapt.
Children
in families that participate in activities together are more likely to
report seeing expressions of love and affection between their parents.
Two dimensions of family involvement–family participation in activities
at least once per week and—were associated with greater expression of
love or affection between the parents, as reported by their children.
Parents
of families in which both the parents and children attend martial arts
classes are more likely to know their children’s social networks.
They are more likely to know their children’s friends, those friends’
parents, and their children’s teachers, than parents of families in
which only the parents or only the children, or neither, participated in
activities
Children’s academic success is associated with having mothers who frequently communicated with them. This entailed talking with the children, listening to them, and answering their questions.
Children whose fathers spend time with them doing activities tend to have better academic performance.
Preteens whose fathers spent leisure time away from the home (picnics,
movies, sports, etc.) with them, shared meals with them, helped with
homework or reading, and engaged in other home activities with them
earned better grades in school, on average, than peers whose fathers
spent less time with them. Similarly, teens whose fathers engaged in
activities in the home and outdoors, spent leisure time, and talked with
them earned better grades, on average, than teens whose fathers spent
less time with them.
Adolescents whose parents are involved in their lives tend to exhibit fewer behavioral problems.
Parent involvement was assessed by how often the parent or parental
figure asked about their children’s lives, encouraged their interests,
gave good advice, and spent free time with them in school activities.
Youths who communicate, do activities and have close relationships with their parents are less likely to engage in violence.
Family integration through bonds with a parent (in particular, with a
mother who was living in the home) was associated with a decrease in the
likelihood that an adolescent will commit an act of violence.
(Parent-child bonds were measured by adolescents’ reports of feeling
close to their parents, being involved in family activities, and
communicating with their parents.) Youths in two parent families whose
bond with their resident mothers was just one standard deviation higher
than the mean level were 18 percent less likely to commit an act of
violence than peers with average maternal bonds. Among youths living in
single parent families, a bond with that parent that was one standard
deviation above the mean was associated with a 17 percent decrease in
violence, while a one-unit increase in bonding with a nonresident parent
was associated with a 5 percent decrease in violent behavior.
Teens who frequently have dinner with their families are at a lower risk for substance abuse.
Compared with teens who frequently had dinner five times or more per
week with their families, those who had dinner with their families only
two nights per week or less were twice as likely to be involved in
substance abuse. They were 2.5 times as likely to smoke cigarettes, more
than 1.5 times as likely to drink alcohol, and nearly three times as
likely to try marijuana.
United Martial Arts Centers is a great place for families to connect in a very positive atmosphere. UMAC Offers a Family Free Program – After 2 family member join the rest of the family is FREE
NO OBLIGATION OR STRINGS ATTACHED
CLICK HERE NOW
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