As parents it is important to find a balance between church meetings and family time. This becomes even trickier if you are in a leadership position or once you have youth aged children in the home. It is difficult because you are also trying to juggle other activities as well. As you take the time to make the right choices for your family, you should make sure that you are making the most of the time you do set aside for family. Here are some things to consider as you find the right balance for your family.
Are the meetings planned effectively to make the best use of your time? If you are in a church leadership position, you may want to determine if all the meetings are necessary or if some meetings can be combined or shortened to better meet the needs of the members of the ward and their families as well. You may consider planning meetings at times when the majority of children are in school if you have primary aged children, during youth activities if you are in the Relief Society presidency or right after mutual. This may help to limit the number of days that you are away from your family.
Are the meetings necessary to attend? It is also important to realize that you are not expected to attend all the church activities. It is important to show your support, but you may choose to skip some of the meetings occasionally. You should attend your Sunday meetings, and the youth should attend their weekly meetings. You can decide whether or not the sports activities for your youth puts too much strain on your family. You may also decide to attend every other ward activity instead of every single one.
Are you allowing other activities to encroach into your church and family time? You may need to cut back on the extracurricular activities that your family participates in, so that you have time together as a family. It makes more sense to cut back on dance classes, then Wednesday night activities. You may also choose to limit the number of hours your teenager works in order to have more time together as family.
Are you making the most of the time you do have together as a family? This does not mean that you have to have a structured activity for every moment that you are together, but rather that you actually spend the time together as a family. If you have each child in his own room playing video games or surfing the Internet then there really isn’t much point to the family time that you are trying to have.
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