How Do you keep your family together?

The way the hours or where hubby worked when kids grew up was hard to eat dinner together or any mel. lots of times he worked 7 days a week. But me nd the kids had our time together might not have prayed all the time but we were together. and if we had big things to talk about gathered at the kitchen table to talk about it. and now we get down on the floor with grand daughter and play with her or if we are in the car we are in training of her spelling words and things have her pick out al kinds of thing s he sees along the road. Never let a mind set silent. I do beleive I have a very close family!

i keep my family tight by prayer and devotional every night.... when i'm away from work, we'll just do individual prayers

we gather every weekend so we still keep our family together we talk about happenings for the weekdays work and we ate dinner together.we also watching comedy movies.

Family is the foundation that maintains order, inspiration and motivation. There is love where family is. There are many different reasons way this division of family traditions has occurred. But it is not lost. We all in some ways long for family. A place where people know our names and who we are inside. A place where we feel absolutely accepted. I make sure to spend that time with my children. I pray that families come back together, "old school" style. There was an undeniable strength that seems to be missing in children today. I believe families can be saved if we simply look back and implement those values that were strong. What do you think?

yes, your right! as we can see the children now a days, from school instead of doing their homework, they easily go with the computer. and its hard for them to eat ontime, or else they eat while facing the computer. even us parent, we are too busy with our work having ot always. but the important is during sunday its family day. the family should go together on church and having shopping with the children, go to park, other things that can make your family together and can make your family happy. but takenote: not all material things can make them happy, but they need our attention sometimes.

now a days,it is really hard to keep your family together because of the busy schedule of the parents and also the soap operas every night,and computer games.. i would like to share this...in our church as a family we encourage to have a family home evening every Monday night., we gather together as family...each family member have its own assignment..we will sing together the opening hymn and..then one will give the opening prayer,the other one will give the spiritual thought,the other one will give lesson and discussion.,story telling about what happen to us for the whole week..and we have also games.,after the games we will have the closing hymn and closing prayer,.. Our church also teach how we can have our family together for eternity...and it is through temple marriage and family sealing.... And one my our goal as family is to be sealed on the temple...and for my future family is to marry in the temple.... Now, i am far from my family because of my work...and i do miss the time to be with them and having a family home evening., but not miss that much because me and my boyfriend conduct a family home evening even though it is through text only.. I always enjoy and learned a lot every time we have that family home evening.... hope you can get some ideas of how you can keep your family together..

We torture the children on weekends by taking them out to movies, historical sites, natural sites, etc. They complain sometimes, because they want to stay home and just play or whatever, but we do it anyway.

As always, your discussion both intrigues me and causes me to smile at the educated thoughts that you portray here. You are in-tune to life and the events that change and mold us and I find you to be a most fascinating lady. This topic has been on my heart for many years and it is more important as well as potent than almost any matter we face today. I can only respond to this by means of what I have been taught and learned over the years. Satan and the world has long sought ways to seprate the family dwellings. The reason is as you say, to take away the strength that is the many. In order for the world to control us and Satan to reach each person, there had to be a seperation of family ties. The strongest part of the family has always been the dinner table. It is where we find out what our children are doing and who they are seeing as friends. The world knew that of they could seperate the family, they could gain control fo the children and cause a gap in the ties that make a family strong. The T.V. is said to be one of the greatest invention of our time. I say it was and remains the most destructive invention ever created. The T.V. tray became the place of choice to eat our meals. No longer were questions and conversations about what our children are doing asked. No more would we laugh together at our happenings or know what classes our children were taking, passing, failing. The conversation was replaced with the words "hush, I want to hear this part" or "I am trying to watch this show!" Our children follow our lad and when we get too involved in something other than their lives, they will take it elsewhere. The cost of t.v. taking the place of our children is unmeasureable. The price is way too high an the loss too large to even imagine. Strength is always more effective in numbers as as we watch the breakdown of our family ties, we are in fact witnessing the fall of our future. Satan is winning and we are losing the most precious gift of all. The computer has come amidst the already unstable structure of our families and added moe seperation. To have to walk into a computer room to have a conversation with our children is a sad state of affairs. It is just one more wall being built between us and our family. If we lose contact with our children and our family, then we lose everything precious to us. You said it right when you said we need Discipline. We can take our children back. We can become strong as a famliy again. But first, we hae to choose to do so. We must weigh the facts and find where we are lacking and then, shut the t.v. off or close down the computer if we are to regain ourplace as a family. Can we reverse this fall? Can we become a family as it was meant to be? You would find, I believe, that your children would be most responsive to the change. They yearn and grow from our actions and we have the power to make our family what it was before we had t.v. and computers. We must choose to do this because our home is not the only place that suffers for our seperation from the dinner table. The whole country is truly at stake when we choose to watch a show over listening and talking with our family. No one will starve while waiing for the entire family to sit down. If a show is THAT important to you, record it and watch it after you have spent time with your family. You will find that you didnt miss a thing on t.v. And if you must turn the t.v. on then watch a family show that it is ok for your children to talk and ask questions. You might learn something new about your kids AND yourself. It is up to You. Again I thank you for this discussion. You are always a beautiful guarentee of a wonderful topic. Know you are dear to me and that I follow your discussions always. Darrel

NO need to blame anyone or anything,, all we need to do is make a better time table,, I know it IS POSSIBLE,, there are times we cannot be together for prayers,,but then whenever possible we do it ,,TV ,computers, I pods are here to stay,, We need to adjust and find time for what is our PRIORITIES

NO need to blame anyone or anything,, all we need to do is make a better time table,, I know it IS POSSIBLE,, there are times we cannot be together for prayers,,but then whenever possible we do it ,,TV ,computers, I pods are here to stay,, We need to adjust and find time for what is our PRIORITIES

Well in todays world family is about sacrafice I think. You have to sacrafice your time and things you want to do.....since there is so much to do out there now...with technology.....for your partner and your children. You have to set time aside, still find the time to talk and make lots of compromises to keep everyone happy and at a non stressed level. I think the major things that help my family are planning and schedules, sacrafice and compromise and Sundays are our family day. We don't pray, we aren't church goers but we are a very happy family. It all seems to fit in place. We have made it together for 10 years now. So I must be doing something right.

This is a sad fact and I'm guilty to what I just read. Today has become more challenging than yesterday and that accounts for coming home at different time. Lunch and dinners had to be eaten in front of the computer in the hopes of earning more money. The only time we get to bond is when we go to a grocery or mall to shop or eat out. I do hope this set-up will change soon so that I can instill some good manners and right conduct to my 3 daughters before they become all grown-up.

This is a sad fact and I'm guilty to what I just read. Today has become more challenging than today and that accounts for coming home at different time. Lunch and dinners had to be eaten in front of the computer in the hopes of earning more money. The only time we get to bond is when we go to a grocery or mall to shop or eat out. I do hope this set-up will change soon so that I can instill some good manners and right conduct to my 3 daughters before they become all grown-up.

Well, thats well said..we need little discipline and commitment towards the family. A get together or spending time for the family has to be practised and that has its great impact on the unity of the family and understanding! Thats a nice discussion, thanks for sharing!

We spend supper time together. Most of the time we sit at the table together. Once in a great while, we sit in the living room and watch a show together while eating. We spend most Sundays together. Having a teenager in the house, sometimes that doesn't happen, as we give in. We also take off and go camping most of the summer.

I believe that the family that prays together stays together. We do eat together on Sunday's and go to mass together. We try to have quality time together, dedicate time for our son, to play with his cousins, taking him to playing fields. We also try to watch some television together in the evenings and go for a half an hour walk, despite my son's complaining. We do to have difficulties in eating together since we have different times. My son always have lunch at my parent's house and most of the times my wife and I eat alone since we have different working hours. I think we are living in a fast society, though life is what we make it.

hi zandi when our children were little it was a must we all have dinner together around six then homework and bed. we lost our little daughter at age 8 but we stuck to the family dinner and the three of us to gether until my son was grown. I think you just have to make a decision to have some family time, to eat together and to discuss things, and just be a family for awhile. television can and will wait,its not the most important thing in our lives at all. great discussion. thanks zandi.

I agree with you zandi. Life is at such a fast pace nowadays and all the technology around doesn’t help. I’ve been guilty myself of eating my dinner in front of the computer when I’ve been behind with my work but when I do that, I always ensure that I make time for my family as soon as possible because it is up to my husband and I to ensure that we have adequate family time together. It is a case of remembering our priorities and enforcing them. The family unit does not have to be fragmented, it is up to us. Your discussion is a good reminder to switch off the appliances and take some time with our loved ones.

I see this especially in my son's family . He has three boys and with baseball and school and both parents working it's hard to have a set down time for a meal. I think our world has changed to the point where making a living is harder and our kids suffer cuz parents push their kids into sports or whatever. My step daughter does this too with her two daughters. There is no time for a family type of life other than hi and bye and run, run. But that is the way it is and some of these families will collapse from the running and going.

dear,it is not our fault,with developing of our socity,more and more viewpoint up against challenge ,how to keep our family together means difficult course,nowadays in some developed city ,women can work to afford themself daily expenses,and they have huge relationship .there are so many computer around us.each one basically have one ,so community action increased,people would like to sit in front of computer to read novels,play games.cheat others using virtual network.whereas if one family unit like to continue,the most inportant thing is there is common topics between each other,under that condition,having a childred maybe useful to a family .