HEATHER PARIS

You might have participated in team building exercises at work, but what about doing some team building at home? This weekend I had my kids do a fun project together and they loved it! I told the kids that they just inherited an island and they were the new government. Here are the tasks they had to complete:

1 Name the island
2 Design a license plate
3 Design a flag
4 Choose a national bird, and flower
5 Write a national anthem
6 Appoint one another to government offices
7 Create laws

The rules were these:

1 You must ALL participate, and no one may be excluded.

The kids had a great time coming up with jobs and tasks, and they really loved the creativity aspect. They all participated without “taking over” for one another, and allowed input from all members.

Ethan wrote and sang the national anthem. Carrie drew and colored a license plate, Mattie and Harry took senior roles and helped to manage the tasks. They all created the laws together, and even drew a schematic of the island and plan to create a 3 dimensional model. It was a lot of fun and Thad and I enjoyed watching them all work together. We were quite surprised that they created very traditional type laws, as we were expecting “Ice cream for dinner” laws, or perhaps “A pony for every household.”

If you are struggling with children that don’t get along with one another, this might be one exercise that can help create bonds. Encouraging group activity and team building can have a big impact on siblings. Just remember to never use “time together” as a punishment. For example, never make one child play with another as punishment, it shows the child that their sibling is nothing more than a consequence of bad behavior and is sure to make them resentful of one another. Try some fun team/sibling/family building activities and Live Inspired Now!