Wholesome Recreational Activities

"Successful marriages and families are maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

-The Family: A Proclamation to the World

I love that "wholesome recreational activities" (which I'll refer to as WRAS) is important enough to be listed in The Family: A Proclamation to the World right along with things like faith, forgiveness, and love. To me, that indicates that WRAS are part of a balanced family life.

When considering WRAS, it's important to note that there is a greater amount of gratification from activities that require personal effort than from activities of pleasure that are provided by the environment (Widmer and Taniguchi, 2012).

For example, reading to your children requires a certain amount of effort, resulting in building a relationship and developing a life skill. Watching TV and eating pizza together doesn't necessarily build higher levels of social knowledge or skills (Widmer and Taniguchi, 2012).

(I'm not saying that we shouldn't watch TV and eat pizza together, but if that is the only thing we ever do with our families, we are stunting our family growth).

The best WRAS are ones where we invest rather than simply consume (Widmer and Taniguchi, 2012).

Research has found that optimal experiences (or "the best" experiences) involve some sort of challenge and growth. In fact, people become bored if their activities lack challenge (Widmer and Taniguchi, 2012).

In studying this topic, I took some time to think about some of the things my family has done that have challenged us or helped us develop better knowledge and skills. I quickly realized that everything we do right now is challenging because of our children's stages of development - even watching TV and eating pizza - but there are some things that provide more knowledge than others. Here are a few things I thought of:

Running races together...

 

 Scotty and I both took second in our age divisions in this 10k. A few weeks later we got a ribbon in the mail for First Place Couple! (Possible only couple, but we like the ribbon anyway!)

 

 

The Spartan Race was one of the best dates we've been on!

 

 Our first (and only) family 5k since Eva was born.

 

 Living room basketball...

 

Scotty plays on his knees, and he can still reach a foot over the hoop.

 Camping... 

   

Is it fun or is it pure torture? I haven't decided yet, but we always seem to look back on camping trips fondly even if we froze all night and woke up to icy water bottles and a case of hand, foot, and mouth. 

Hiking... 

 

   

This was the hardest hike we've done as a family. It was brutal and took hours and hours. We had to stop for naps on the way out.

 

   

Scotty's typical hiking attire involves no less than two children. Confession: we haven't been on a single hike since having Eva.

 

Riding bikes...

   

Building with Legos...

   

Playing at the park...

   

 

 

 We've been able to teach our kids a number of skills at the park: how to swing, how to cross monkey bars, how to climb, how to get along with friends, etc. The park is an excellent classroom for life skills!

Playing board games...

 

Board games teach a number of life skills. Plus they are a challenge. We haven't played Risk with our kids yet, but we definitely will someday!

Now that I've reflected on some of our experiences with wholesome recreational activities, I can't help but think that the kind of WRAS that are most beneficial to our families are the kind wherein we suffer a little bit.  Also, there is a lot of the great outdoors involved. 

Research has shown that families who believe they can do outdoor activities have a better belief in their ability to solve problems at home (Widmer and Taniguchi, 2012). Interestingly, all of our hiking, running, and camping experiences have involved extensive problem solving (and a lot of crying), but we initially believed we could do it, which was why we tried it in the first place.

In many cases, I think the best WRAS are only labeled "the best" WRAS after we've come home and recovered. They're not always fun or positive until we've had time to process and learn from them. 

I'd love to hear about some of your experiences with WRAS. What has your family done to have fun together? What things have you done that have challenged you and provided learning experiences?

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This post was inspired by "Wholesome Recreational Activities: Building Strong Families," by Mark A. Widner and Stacy T. Taniguchi, published in Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives, 2012. This piece of writing is part of my Family Proclamation project for FAML 100 at Brigham Young University Idaho.