So you’ve done it: you’ve established a family night. A time when you will all say no to everything else that demands your time, you’ll focus on each other and connect. That’s great! So…now what?

Don’t worry, family night’s are easy to accomplish and don’t require a lot of pre-planning. Don’t believe me? To help you out, we’ll be posting some family night ideas over the next few days to get you started.

But first -2 rules for parents:

Be engaged – Make sure your kids have your full attention & that TV’s, cell phones, game score updates, etc are not a distraction. Also, fully participate in the activities, just as you’d expect your children too. They will think it’s fun if you think it’s fun!

Be positive – Be heavy on the praise – let each person know how well they did, how they worked as a team, what they contributed & anything positive you noticed during your time together.

Now, for some ideas.

Brainstorm: What do you remember doing as a child? Your children will probably love it, too! My husband has a great memory of camping in the backyard with his brother to watch a meteor shower as a child, so now we sometimes wake our girls up in the middle of the night to catch one. (The Perseids meteor shower has peak viewing time in early to mid-August every year, so you can still get your kids out of bed at 2 am without worrying about school the next day.)

I grew up playing games as a family, so now we do a lot of game-playing at our house. Some great interactive family games for school-aged children are Apples to Apples, Would You Rather?, and active games on the Wii. Remember, EVERYONE participates! For younger children, we love Chutes & Ladders, High Ho Cherry-oh & Trouble. Find out what your family’s favorite game is and spend some time playing it together.

Now that you’ve got the rules in mind and a couple of family time ideas, start brainstorming on your own. What did you love to do as a child that you can now share with your own children? Let us know by adding it as a comment below and stay tuned for our next two blog posts with more amazing family time ideas!