Tips for Building Healthy Relationships
The Lifeschooling theme for February is “Love Never Fails,” so I asked my community, as well as other homeschool bloggers, to give me their tips for building healthy relationships. With Valentine’s Day on our minds, February is a great month to focus on relationships not just between husbands and wives, but also between parents and children.
Tips for Building Healthy Relationships from the Lifeschooling Community
Here are some of the tips I was given from my smart community of lifeschoolers:
- Hubby and I have started eating breakfast and reading Scripture and praying together in the morning before we have Bible and Breakfast with the children.
- Jim has a special game night with one child each week.
- We have family movie night.
- I talk with one of my sisters every week, standing phone date.
– Emmie Manor, The Manor Manor
- As a family we are doing The Bible Recap together each day.
- I send a text to everyone in the family that has a phone the schedule for the week so no one is surprised when others are gone etc.
– Sarabeth P.
- My husband and I take a long walk together every night. It’s our time to talk and reconnect without kids. It’s blessed our marriage tremendously
- My husband pulls out a big puzzle in the evenings after dinner and he and the older kids work on it. It’s a good way for them to talk and connect at the end of the day and something they all really enjoy.
Emily Allyn Reynolds, Inlovewithlearning.com
- 16mo and I’ll take him outside. Put on music and we dance it out. Feed him (both solids and breastfeeding) basically just don’t make it difficult, just be present.
- Put the phone down, quit cleaning for a min and just get down on their level and enter their world. I was actually frantically cleaning house this morning and my son is running back and forth around the house and I just stopped what I was doing for a min and played with him and his toys, took about 2 min, but he loved it and so did I.
– Ray H.
- One on one walks and outings.
- Late night chats.
- Little notes when they go away.
- Being aware and doing little things when they need a bit of help or encouragement.
– Rachel
- Play legos, draw and listen to Creator together.
– Megan J.
Tips for Building Healthy Relationships from Our Home
I loved all these creative responses, and some of them are things we also do! There is so much we can learn from each other about being intentional with showing love to our families. Here are more tips for building healthy relationships based on my own experiences:
- Choose one day a week (at least) to have a “date” with your spouse, even if you can’t do much. My husband struggles with various chronic health issues, including a TBI, so it makes it difficult to really go out on “real” dates or have deep conversations. But every Monday, the kids go to youth group (my older kids help the youth pastor lead, so I’m comfortable with it), and he and I just have quiet time together watching something.
- Take a bath with your spouse. Okay, that might sound kind of strange, but it’s become our habit every night to run a hot bath with baking soda, epsom salts, and lavendar oil. It’s a great way to detox (my husband feels a difference when we don’t) and it’s a good time to talk, too…though we usually watch something because of how tired he is after work.
- Go places together. This is a great tip for kids and spouses! Errands have to be run, so you might as well take the opportunity for some one-on-one time with one of your loved ones. Come prepared with specific questions…there are lots of conversation starters you can find online!
- Take inventory of your relationships. If you find yourself slipping into negative, sinful patterns in your family relationships (i.e., yelling, nagging, criticizing, etc.), it might be a good idea to take some time to intentionally reflect on those issues and the reasons for your struggles. The Better Family Relationships workbook is a great place to start! You can work through it together as a family and use it as a tool for growing closer and healing damage that has been done.
Homeschooling is about so much more than academics; it’s about building relationships! And we have such an advantage being with our kids the majority of each day. Take a little time to pray through these tips and ask God how you can intentionally implement some of them in your home.
Maybe you’re already doing some of these! We’d love to hear your tips for building healthy relationships that have worked for your family. Share them below so we can all learn and grow together!
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