Many times I'm able to offer a bit of advice for an article and I'm happy to do so. That's the case here with the National edition of the Desert News. Check it out below:
Family
Lois M. Collins
“It’s very much a bonding thing for us,” she said.
The entire article can be read HERE.
How home design can foster family unity
Gina Tentzeras and her
husband Chris sit beside each other on the couch, facing twin TV sets on
the credenza, their young son between them playing a puzzle game on his
iPad. They’ve outfitted this family space in their Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, home for a togetherness they enjoy passionately: video games.
“It’s very much a bonding thing for us,” she said.
They both have demanding jobs, but for one hour at least
three times a week, she describes it as “a high priority.” She already
envisions Demetri joining them, describing how their toddler plays the
games on his iPad “with a shocking amount of skill and efficiency for a
3-year-old.”
Most of the way across the continent in Bountiful, Utah,
Tonya and Jeff Olsen enjoy family time in the 1960 rambler they
renovated with such closeness in mind. He’s watching TV, while she reads
a few feet away. Zach, 15, and Aiden, 13, are there, as well, playing
on their phones.
Families are congregating where members can hang out as a
group even if they’re not pursuing the same activities. This casual turn
in family life is reflected by the latest trend in home design: an
airy, open floor plan, with the kitchen, dining and living space flowing
into each other.
While homebuilders and decorators report more families
forego a formal dining room, that choice is not coming at the expense of
togetherness.
The National Association of Home Builders survey last year
found most prospective homebuyers considered table space to eat
together in the kitchen “must have” (36 percent) or “desirable” (49
percent), said Stephen Melman, head of the association’s economic and
housing policy group. “So 85 percent were saying they do want to eat
together in a way.”
Melman believes the open-air designs of today may be even
more family friendly than older designs, creating “a lighter home where
everybody is together and not separated off to individual rooms.”
“I think families tend to want to be together, certainly
at home after a long day of work or school,” agreed Matthew Mead,
nationally recognized home stylist, writer, photographer, lifestyle
expert and magazine publisher.
Eating together
Kitchens are becoming by far the most important spaces in
her clients’ homes, “the heart of the home where family and friends can
gather to relax, work and play,” said Tonya Olsen, owner and interior
designer for LIV Showroom in Bountiful.
Research says meals together are an important part of
healthy adolescence. Children in families that eat dinner together most
nights are significantly less likely to use illegal drugs, smoke or
abuse alcohol. And kids who make it to 21 without using those substances
probably never will, says research from the National Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
Lori McClory and her husband bought an open concept home
when the kids were little. The wide-open kitchen and dining room she
once thought too noisy is now one of her favorite features. “We can talk
with each other while putting the finishing touches on dinner, set the
table and clean up after, not to mention over dinner,” she said.
Her kids are now 19 and 22 and usually away at college,
but when they’re home in Grantham, New Hampshire, they try for dinner
together at least three times a week, even if it’s “just a quick bite
between all of us getting home from work and them leaving to hang with
friends.”
Experts note families can mix up which meals they share,
as long as there are lots of them, and get the same kind of results. You
could eat together on the floor; it's not the "when" or the "where,"
but the "how." What's important is focused interaction, so turn off the
TV.
A “hub” of activity
Everything that once happened in different rooms often
happen now in one space, less formally, said home stylist Mead. “Eating
together has become way more informal and a lot of it takes place on the
run. Kids might go home and eat around the kitchen island. Mom and dad
might sit at a table to eat from a plate. Space builds itself around our
lifestyle. (Open-air design) provides places to crash and reconnect. It
also contains the kind of chaos of everyday life and seems more OK."
There are also other ways outside of meal time to create parent-child engagement.
“So many families are leading very busy lives with
schedules that involve commitments to work, play, school and church.
It’s a lot to juggle. The home can help create a sanctuary for
connection and communication,” said Karen Lankford, an American Society
of Interior Designers home stylist in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “Many
homebuilders I work with today are adding a ‘hub,’ a centrally located
space that can accommodate homework, bill paying, schedule coordination.
... The idea is to make a space that is easy for everyone to access and
enjoy in a location that provides for together time while
multi-tasking.”
It needn’t take a lot of room, but it means parents don’t
disappear into a back office to pay bills or kids shut themselves in
their rooms to do homework, said Lankford.
“It means that parents can lead their children by example
when it comes to things like time-management and financial
responsibility and they are readily available to hear about their
child’s day and homework,” she said.
Both dining and family room areas are important to
families, Dr. Angela Butts Chester of New Life Pastoral Counseling in
Long Beach, California, agreed. Even families who can’t get schedules
together to sit down for a meal can meet in the family room during
different points in the day.
The rooms offer the same resources: "love, time, closeness
and a sense of comfort,” she said. “One room simply allows you to
lounge while the other does not. No matter if you are sitting up or
laying down, eating or watching a movie together, you will always carry
the emotions and stories associated with the bond you made with family.”
Mead said common spaces are “a compartment for daily
life,” home to food, homework, daily check-ins, filled with surfaces for
homework and technology or creating art. They are naturally
multi-generational and multi-tasking, just like the people who use them.
The entire article can be read HERE.
Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard's March 29 proposal was
pretty much the cutest thing ever, since they met on Skype while he was
on a mission trip in Nepal and Jill was in Arkansas (even calling it
"love at first Skype").
(Photo: Animal Planet)
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