Making Family Memories During Difficult Times

During today’s volatile climate, making family memories is critical.

2016 has been a hell of a year. With a polarizing election season, rampant hate, mass shootings, violence against police, and unwarranted murders of men of color, it has been a lot for most of us to comprehend. Add to that a recent death of a family member, and my family and I are at our wits’ end. How can you stay sane and positive when everything seems to be crumbling around us?

I, for one, have found it quite hard to go on business as usual this summer. The endless distribution of bad news, social media updates that keep notifying us of turmoil and discontent can be overkill. As much as I want to be a good mom, friend, partner, etc., with so much going on, I sometimes feel like I am losing it. It’s times like these when I rely on my family to assist me in nourishing my soul while giving me solace that there is still good in the world.

What I’ve learned the most during awful time is to keep my loved ones close—making family memories during difficult times is crucial to help drown out the pain and horribleness that surrounds us. While we are aware of the current goings on of the 24 hour news cycle, we cannot let that overtake our well being—putting the focus on our families during this time can help us get through anything.

We can go back and forth on how we handle bad news and constant negativity happening in our society—but most of you can agree that making family memories during difficult times can help you continue to see light in a dark world.

How can you create these family memories during adversity? Here are a few tips:

Log off

Logging off isn’t a suggestion, it’s pretty much mandatory. Don’t allow yourself to get bogged down on the constant status updates and newsfeed videos which spread bad news and sadness. Allow yourself time off the grid and away from the Internet and the news cycle and focus on taking this time and spending it with your family. Encourage other family members to do this as well.

Day trip

While off the grid, take a day trip to a favorite destination or nearby city. This will help you focus on something other than bad news and help pull you all together as a family unit.

Share

Help uplift one another by sharing happy thoughts and memories that can lighten the load. Send words of encouragement and allow it to help heal wounds.

Don’t cancel plans

If you have family plans, don’t cancel them because of current events. Continuing your plans can help take your minds off of the things for a little while and does a family good.

Talk about it

Discussing the current goings on assists in the healing as we all try to understand. If you have little ones, try to be as open as possible while discussing these tragic instances. Acting like it isn’t happening isn’t going to make them go away. But using your voice while creating a dialog with your kids is one of the best ways to deal with it all.

As parents, we don’t have a magic wand that we can wave to make everything okay. With our leadership and proactivity, we can be the catalyst needed in our families to create change. The memories made during this Summer of Sadness can be just what the doctor ordered to bring some sunshine in an otherwise dark world.