Core Family Leisure Activities with Dad

I try to read the LDS Church News now and then in order to be a good little Mormon and to know more about the church beyond just my local congregational activities. Recently, I came across a great article: New BYU Study Examines Quality Time with Dad. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it is nice to see some research back up common sense. 

The gist of the article is that " the single greatest predictor of family cohesion, family adaptability and overall family functioning was when a father was involved in quality core family leisure activities" as opposed to balance leisure activities. Mothers have no significant effect! Okay, I made up the last part and am just kidding. But it is funny how sometimes studies, like this, come out and their results seem to indicate a silver-bullet solution to our problems just because the statistics can be shown to say so. But let's assume that they/we are just talking about a father's individual influence on their family. It is the core leisure activities (day-to-day), not the balance leisure activities (bigger, planned) that are more effective. So what are these activities? The article listed a few.

Examples of core leisure activities:

• Eating a meal together
• Playing board games 
• Watching TV and movies 
• Playing sports in the yard/park
• Playing video games
• Attending children's performances
• Gardening
• Reading books

Examples of balance leisure activities:

• Eating out
• Shopping
• Sporting events
• Vacations
• Boating and fishing
• Visiting the zoo
• Camping
• Hiking

It's not that the latter aren't good, but without the former they aren't very effective. I mostly wrote this because it hit home with me. That's why starting tomorrow we're eating out every meal, going camping every night, hiking everywhere we go, while on a continuous vacation. That's right, I'm making the balance and core leisure activities one in the same. Wish me luck! (Just kidding. I would never need luck.)