Preteens or tweens are in a difficult phase of their life. They are learning and growing rapidly with changing hormones, which can be a lot to process.
With these changes often comes a newfound sense of independence that can be challenging for parents to accept. Family nights promote quality time with your tween and have myriad benefits for you and your child as you navigate this challenging phase.
Offers Bonding Opportunities
Family movie and game nights offer bonding opportunities between tweens and parents. Tweens need guidance and support from every angle at their age and family nights can provide a chill way to prompt them to open up. Game nights are an excellent way to maintain close family relationships.
Bonding as a family can be challenging with hectic schedules like work, school or extracurricular activities. Ensure that you make time to spend together at least once a week. Schedule the time in your calendar if you must to ensure that it takes place.
Family time is important for many reasons. Family bonding reinforces connection and provides your tween with direction, security and resilience.
Tweens might be starting to show signs that they don’t need you as much, but that doesn’t mean you should back off completely. Ensure that they know how much you care by making time for them and showing how important it is to you.
If you can’t make a movie or game night happen, ensure that you show you care in other ways.
Game or movie nights can encourage your child to feel a sense of belonging, giving them meaning and purpose. These feelings can motivate your tween to push forward in times of difficulty, knowing that they have full support from their parents.
Provides Health Benefits
Family movie and game nights provide health benefits for you and your tween. What a bonus! You know that laughter is the best medicine and reduces stress, so why not encourage your family to participate in games and activities that promote laughter?
Hanging out on the couch watching movies may not require much effort, but tweens are likelier to want to do their own thing.
Encourage them to participate in movie night by making it fun with unique snacks that aren’t popcorn, letting them choose the movie or inviting their friends to join you. Spending time with your family can establish or reinforce connection and a strong support system for your teen.
These quality nights together can drastically reduce the risk of depression, anxiety and other common mental health conditions. It can also lower your tween’s risk of behavioral issues like substance abuse.
Family activities offer an outlet for your tween’s emotions that might cause them to act out and make unhealthy choices.
Healthy family relationships give tweens healthy coping mechanisms to navigate their daily lives. Stress can have many adverse effects on your body, so tweens need all of the support and guidance you can give them to keep them healthy, happy and geared up for their teen years.
Builds Self-Esteem
Tweens often encounter feelings of self-doubt and uncertainty as they emerge from adolescence into their teenage years. This time period can bring up feelings of confusion and your tween may struggle as they begin to find themselves during their development.
This is the time when their style begins to change, their friend group begins to form and their perspective often shifts.
Support your tween by listening to them when they talk to you, encouraging them to have open and honest conversations and teaching them conflict resolution. Family movie and game nights promote self-confidence through communication and problem-solving.
Movies inspire conversations about how to handle conflict that could potentially arise.
Competitive games can cause disagreements that your child can witness or take part in to learn constructive ways to discuss and manage problems. Games can also teach tweens the importance of working as a team.
When you have to work together to solve riddles or the object of a game, it teaches interpersonal communication skills, teamwork and how to adapt in situations.
Family nights can help your child feel seen, appreciated, loved and valued by you and the rest of your family.
A strong family support system is the foundation for a positive self-image and encourages your child to be confident as they navigate this rocky period of their lives and find who they want to become. A game night might seem insignificant to you, but it can pave the road to success for your tweens.
Encouraging Family Nights
Family movie and game nights offer an opportunity to nurture your tween’s growth and development. They provide a way to help prepare them for success by encouraging them to spend time with family.
Entice your tween with family night with ideas that appeal to them like games they enjoy, cooking their favorite meal or a movie they want to see.
