Busy workdays for parents and children can create barriers in family relationships. Building strong family ties when schedules are full requires effort and much patience. Sunshine aims to help families build a strong family foundation. After all, having strong relationships helps us to feel at ease and plays an essential role in maintaining good health. Here are five steps to guide you.

1. Make eating together a habit

Find time to share a meal with your family, no matter how busy you are. Studies have shown that families who eat together three or more times a week are healthier. Family mealtimes are a huge factor in children’s nutritional health, reduces the risk of developing depression, and promote healthy eating patterns resulting in a healthy weight and a healthy relationship with food.

Furthermore, eating with your family will help you get to know each other better, share conversations. Schedule a meal each day or at least a few times a week to engage with your family.

2. Spend quality time

Spending quality family time doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. You can start by doing activities that your family enjoys. This could be a movie night, solving puzzles, getting ice cream together, or simply engaging the family in preparing a meal. What’s important is that you are fully present in the moment, spending meaningful time with them.

3. One-on-one time with each family member

Conversations with the entire family like those at dinnertime are good, but individual chats with your partner and each child strengthen relationships as well. Don’t get stressed about scheduling these. Just sneak this one on one conversations in any time during the day, while on a walk, morning coffee conversations, in the car, or whenever you find 10 or 15 minutes free together.

Knowing what is happening in your children’s and partner’s lives is a vital strategy to deepen your connection with each individual.

4. Be involved

In whatever activity your children and partner are interested in, be proactive and genuinely engage with them. Be inquisitive enough to know how they are doing, ask questions and listen sincerely. These simple gestures matter to them and can help bring you closer. By expressing genuine interest in topics or activities closely connected to that person, you give them a gift, a sense of importance, well being and value.

5. Share daily expressions of love and support

Greeting each other before leaving and arriving home with a hug or a peck on the cheek are examples to show gestures of love. Make it everyone’s habit. Also, don’t hesitate to complement each family member for jobs well-done.

These gestures allow you to consistently express the love and care you feel toward your family and be the glue to ensure your family stays close and loving.

Remember to take joy in the small daily happenings. There’s nothing better than having meaningful connections with your family.