Core & Balance

Raise your hand if you have a rock hard core!  I’m guessing only like one percent of our readers raised their hand because let’s face it; a rock hard core is a difficult goal to achieve.  Nonetheless everyone knows a solid core is at the center of a strong and healthy body the same way a solid foundation keeps a building stable.  As we continue to discuss how to influence the 40% of our happiness we can control, it is important to remember to have balance in all things.  We want to make sure we do not have too much or too little of something.  Balance in all things will help us enjoy the good things life has to offer.

Today we are going to break down for you a family recreation theory called Core and Balance. This theory revolves around different kinds of family leisure activities, different benefits that arise from them, and how it all fits together to provide a healthy, functioning family.  It outlines two different types of family activities, core and balance, and how these activities relate to cohesion and adaptability in a family.  

So as stated earlier, let’s start with the core.  Core family activities "are depicted in the common, everyday, low-cost, relatively accessible, and often home-based activities that many families do frequently.  This includes activities such as watching television and videos together, playing board games, playing together in the yard, shooting baskets together in the driveway, gardening, or playing in the leaves once the pile has been raked together.  Core activities often require little planning and resources and are quite spontaneous and informal.  Core family leisure experiences can provide a consistent, safe, and often positive context in which family members can foster relationships.  These common and spontaneous family activities are generally nonthreatening because of their regularity and familiar environment.  They are considered to be play, “just for fun,” or even a step removed from the workday world.  It is in this context of leisure that family members can safely explore boundaries, clarify family roles, and rules, and practice ways to enforce them.  This is also the context in which family members often are consoled, rewarded, refreshed, and rejuvenated.”  This would generally make up the bulk of family leisure time since they are relatively accessible and easy to participate in.  Core activities might also include socializing or engaging in regular conversation.  Core activities such as these foster increased personal relationships and feelings of family closeness and cohesion.

Some examples of core activities in my family are family dinners, LDS family home evening, walks to the park, reading books, and doing “experiments” (arts and crafts) with our children.  Some of my most memorable moments with my kids are our core activities.  I look forward to wrestling my oldest child on the bed when I get home or playing in the leaves on a brisk autumn day.  These activities provide great opportunities to come together as a family.  Touching on what we learned last week about rituals – many of our daily rituals are also core family activities such as family dinner.

Now take a second and reflect on your life.  What kind of core family activities did you participate in either in your current families or when you were a child?  What were they?  How did the benefit your family?  Do you think you grew closer and more cohesive as a result of these activities?  Just some interesting food for thought. 

Now if you strengthened your core all day every day and didn’t ever focus on anything else you would be a little out of balance. Balance family activities generally happen less frequently than core activities and therefore provide a novel experience.  They usually require greater investment of time, effort, and money, and usually take place outside of the home.  Balance activities include activities such as family vacations, outdoor recreation like camping, fishing, and boating, special events, or trips to a theme park, sporting event, or bowling alley.  Balance activities often require substantial planning and are therefore less spontaneous.  However, they tend to be longer in duration than most core activities.  They also tend to be more out of the ordinary and include elements of unpredictability or novelty as previously mentioned.  Balance activities require family members to negotiate and adapt to new experiences and challenges.  Although families may experience increased family cohesion or bonding during a balance activity the nature of these activities can facilitate the ability to learn and change.  Balance activities require families to be exposed to new and unexpected experiences, which provide challenges necessary for families to learn and progress as a whole.  The adaptive skills developed and practiced during balance activities can then be transferred to other areas of family life.

Balance activities for our family include bike rides, trips into the mountains, camping in Moab, Utah, or visiting cousins in Idaho.  Like I’m sure many of you have experienced – long trips with your family in the car present you with all kinds of interesting experiences.  Not everything goes as planned and therefore provides families the opportunity to adapt and learn necessary skills to adapt, change, and go with the flow. 

Again – pause and reflect on your family or childhood.  What kind of balance activities did you do as a family?  Were there just enough, too many or too few?  Where did they take place?  Do you feel they helped your family grow and learn to adapt to difficult situations?  I know for my family they definitely did. 

It is important to point out that although most family activities fall into the category of either a core or balance activity it isn’t always the same for everyone.  A family that skis three times a week might consider skiing to be a core activity while a family who does a ski trip once a year would consider it a balance activity – so core and balance isn’t cut and dry, it can be different for each family. 

Challenge:

Take a minute with your significant other to evaluate your core and balance family activities.  What kind of core activities does your family participate in?  How often do core activities take place in your family?  What kind of balance activities does your family participate in?  How often do balance activities take place in your family?  Once you have evaluated your family activities and pinpointed where you might be lacking – plan together how to be intentional about improving.  Whether that is being intentional about wrestling with your kids when you get home from work (core activity) or planning a much needed weekend at the cabin (balance activity) be intentional about making these things happen.  As you do core and balance activities as often as seems appropriate you will see your family become closer and learn to adapt and change to new experiences.  Resulting in an increase in the way your family functions.

Share:

Take a minute and tell us about your favorite core and balance activities!