In this day and age with everyone's nose in a smart phone, Ipad, or other device, face to face communication is becoming a thing of the past! It has come too easy to send a text or quick reply, message someone on facebook or email. Today's online chatter has actually caused our families to become more and more disconnected. The new age is great for the shy or extrovert, great for the children with selective mutism or social anxiety...or is it?? It has become so easy to communicate without actually speaking a word to someone, that these folks are able to climb deeper into their hole, soon to never escape! We are losing the critical life skill of effective face to face communication. I, myself suffer from some social anxiety and if something isn't able to be done via email you might as well count me out! As many of you know we have a daughter who suffers from
Selective Mutism, she has been in treatment and is doing much better, but she does still have her "quiet" days.
We make it a point in our family to sit down to dinner every night together and have a discussion about our day.
Another way we try and keep open communication and togetherness in our family is to have family movie and game nights. We recently sat down together for family game night with a game from
Harvest Time Partners.
Harvest Time Partners, Inc. was formed over 20 years ago to provide resources to support and encourage individuals, families, and organizations to reach their full potential in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. In addition to it's award winning conversation games, harvest time partners provides custom programs designed to increase personal effectiveness, enhance character development, and strengthen the bonds of marriage and family.
Our family played the board game,
Abundant Harvest For Teens & Adults. The purpose of this game is to help families and educators open the door to communication, encourage decision making based on principles such as honesty, loyalty, and commitment with the intent of reinforcing the law of harvest..."you reap what you sow". In this game you spend quality time together discussing real-life situations, encouraging your teen or adult to open up about dealing with their reality.
This particular game is from 2-8 players recommended ages 13- adult. In this game you move around a game board while reading different scenario cards out loud. The player then makes a decision using a principle from his/her principle card to support his/her decision to the scenario. Each scenario card ends with the phrase, "what would you do?"
I enjoyed listening to my children's answers to each of the scenarios. I learned my kids have a great heart and are always wanting to help those in need. The game did indeed open up our family to communication. If there is something i would change about the game, I would add some happier scenarios to it. The game brings about a lot of life topics that are good to talk about, but each one was a bit negative per say. Bringing more happy scenarios would make this game an A+ in my book.
I do recommend Harvest Time Partners and their products to my readers! I think they have put a lot of thought into helping families and educators. I am interested in purchasing the
Abundant Harvest For Kids game next which is focused on ages 7 an up for the younger kiddos in the family. So if you are interested in a game to open up to one another and help build character skills I recommend you check out all that Harvest Time Partners has to offer!
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Disclosure:
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
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