15 Ideas for Family Team Building
Do you want to do something productive and positive with your family time? Try team-building activities that will help family members understand each other better and feel connected. The goal of team building is to learn how to work together through shared experiences. These shared experiences help people accomplish things together in an enjoyable way.
Team building is especially helpful for newly blended families after remarriage or adoption, and can also be useful as your kids get older to stay connected. Team building can be accomplished through icebreakers and indoor and outdoor activities. Icebreakers are games in which you can share insights about each other during meals or other family times. Indoor and outdoor activities take a little more planning, but these shared experiences create family memories that can last a lifetime. Try to do at least one team-building activity a month with your family. Here's a list of fifteen different ideas:
Shared experiences create family memories that can last a lifetime.
Icebreakers
Would you rather? Give people a choice about what they would rather do. For example, would you rather run like a cheetah or fly like a bird? Would you rather be good at coloring or dancing? Would you rather live your life with no phone or no video games? Eat burgers or nuggets? Vacation at the beach or mountains? Have a bike or skateboard?
Two truths and a lie. Have each person write down two truths and a lie about themselves. Then share each statement and have the others guess if it is a truth or a lie. If a person guesses correctly, they get a point. The person who earns the most points wins.
Penny for your thoughts. Collect pennies or other coins that were minted in different years, but none earlier than the youngest family member's birth year. Have each person pick up a coin and share something memorable that happened in the year printed on it.
Jokes. Have each family member share a silly joke.
Inspirational quote. Have one family member share an inspirational quote and then discuss what it means.
Have a make your own pizza night and then after the meal, have a race to see how quickly everyone can clean up the kitchen!
Indoor Activities
Movie night. Have regular movie nights and let the kids pick what you watch.
Talent show. Share talents (dancing, singing, etc.) individually or in teams.
Game night. Have a game night with board games, puzzles or use one of the ideas below.
Blind drawing - One person describes to another what to draw but doesn't say what the object is. Then, the rest of the family tries to guess what the drawing is.
Birthday line-up - have the family line up in order of their birthdays without talking. If someone speaks, you have to start over.
"Make Your Own Meal". Have a pizza night in which everyone builds their own pizza, makes their own burger, or decorates their own cupcake. After the meal, have a race to see how quickly everyone can clean up the kitchen together. Keep track of your clean-up time and see if you can beat it the next meal!
Outdoor Activities
Scavenger hunts. Go on a scavenger hunt in different teams or as a group. Provide clues that lead sequentially to the final prize. This can also be done indoors.
New skills. Learn a new skill together like a ropes course, meditation, painting, kayaking, archery, etc.
Sports and activities. Participate in sports together like hiking, skiing, fishing, etc.
Field trips. Go on a field trip to visit a museum, a nearby town, a farm, or a monument, or have a picnic in a park.
Service project. Participate in a community service project, like cleaning up a park or litter in your neighborhood.
By deliberately building teamwork within your family, you will create a more positive environment and learn to work together while having fun at the same time. Any other ideas for family team building? Please list them in the comments below.
Hilary Kinney is the author of Project Management for Parents, a timeless book that provides resources for busy parents to streamline life at home. She is a certified Professional Project Manager with 17 years of experience at a Fortune 500 company.