Establishing healthy and balanced routines can be a challenge for many of us. And it is usually much more complicated when your objectives involve having the whole family agreeable with a new, healthful way of living. Many families claim they would like to work towards arranging healthy family goals but just do not know ways to enhance family wellness with all the day-to-day distractions and stresses. Whether it is the demands of social media, school activities, or a busy work schedule, family health and well-being will often wind up near the bottom of the list of priorities.

Develop Healthy Sleeping Routines for Family Members

Sleep — sometimes referred to as Vitamin S — is crucial for family wellness. Sleep is equally as vital to a family’s well-being regime as eating nutritiously and having a sufficient level of physical activity. Yet over 20 percent of adults in the United States admit to getting too little sleep at least half of the days of every month.

Adequate sleep, though, should be considered a must for the entire family. It’s especially important for good teen development. The proper amount of sleep can contribute to beneficial family wellness results including keeping focused to work safely, preventing diabetes, supporting a healthy metabolism, improving school performance, and staving off infection.

As you work to build healthy routines and enhance family wellness, make sure that you don’t neglect adequate sleep. Develop an environment that encourages healthy sleep habits for everyone in your household.

Select a Family Fun Night

It’s a good idea to specify one night each week as a family night and arrange to undertake an activity together. One suggestion is to have the whole family play a board game. Board games are good because they can teach children of all ages different life skills, and they provide stress relief, introduce opportunities for problem solving, encourage creativity, and encourage children to appropriately deal with losing and winning.

Other family fun day ideas include an evening of stargazing, assembling puzzles, art evenings, family slumber party, and camping in the backyard.

Work On Simplifying Your Family’s Schedule

There’s a great deal of conversation these days regarding how families have hectic schedules. Everyone seems to be so busy all the time, including children. Just about every day I find myself having a talk with somebody who invariably says, “Oh, I’ve just been so busy” when I ask, “So, how have you been lately?”

It appears as if most families have simply accepted that confusion and chaos is now the norm. Yet even though we complain and grumble about loaded schedules and being “so, so busy,” nothing is going to really change unless we change. If you think about it, who is it that’s creating the full schedules or making life hectic? While perhaps not easy to admit, quite often most of the chaos is self-imposed.

As both a parent and a person, you have a say in just how busy you will be. You’ve got command over what number of items fill your schedule and cut into family time. If you are occupied much of the time, immersed in pursuits that weaken family wellness, it could be time to re-work family and personal schedule. Below are some tips on doing just that.

• Spend a little time at the start of every week to plan out the week ahead.
• Keep a master family calendar out in the open where the whole family can see it, and update it weekly.
• Create a standard weekly schedule for common, regular tasks like cleaning and doing laundry.
• Save time by taking care of certain small tasks well in advance — prepping meals, packing snacks and lunches, and ironing clothes are some examples.

HealthCorps, which was founded as a “proactive health movement” that focuses on community outreach, advocacy, and education, has more information and tools on this topic.

Eat Your Meals Together

Rather than tossing something frozen into your oven or microwave, or picking up to-go dinner on your way home, think about rounding up the whole family to help you make dinner. Maybe doing this every day isn’t practical, but you could strive to do it at least once per week. No double you will likely acquire feelings of satisfaction for a well-made meal, teach your children about science and mathematics through the process of cooking, have some quality family time laughing and talking, put together a healthier meal, and even begin what will become long-remembered family traditions.

Developing a regular routine centered around either preparing or eating meals all together is an excellent technique to enhance family bonding and wellness. Most likely your family’s busy schedule will make it challenging to prepare meals and eat them together regularly. But though an official sit-down dinner each night at some specified time will no doubt be unrealistic, it should be very possible to still be able to connect with your family over mealtime at least once or twice each week.

Try to make a commitment to place family mealtime a priority. While you won’t be able to sit down every night for dinner, work towards having family mealtime together on a regular basis so it becomes considered the norm rather than the exception. You can begin the conversation by sharing with your family members your wished-for goals around the preparing and eating meals together as a family. Be sure to get them involved by asking them for their involvement and input.

If it turns out that everyone is typically scattered about when it comes to mealtime, you may find it necessary to alter your strategy. Corral family members a little ahead of time so that they all know that dinnertime is drawing near. While we often assume that everyone is too busy, the real issue may be simply a lack of communication and planning.

Putting together some routines around meals has the added benefit of helping your kids establish healthy eating habits — habits that will stick with them as they grow up and even into adulthood. Additionally, your children will come to understand the value of having routines and structure in their lives.