Stronger Families


This past August, I was looking for a way to better our family. I felt like we were surviving, but not really thriving in our day to day interactions. I was personally looking for some sort of class that Malachi and I could take to better our parenting and thus better our family. 

I looked for a few weeks. I scoured the internet. I even started a free online class and had restarted reading more parenting books. But wasn’t satisfied. 

I ended up finding a course called The Stronger Families Project at Utah Valley University. It was completely free but you had to apply and if you got in, then classes would be once a week.

I was super hopeful and applied.

Man, I’m grateful I did!

This class taught me so much. It was every Tuesday night for an hour and a half, and was worth my time! I’m sure there are things that could’ve made it better, but I’m really grateful for it!

My biggest takeaways are having one on one time with the kids every single day. Every single kid should get at least 15 minutes of alone time with each parent. 

We were encouraged to have family dinner every single night. And when we struggled the most with us, one of the teachers invited us that if we could hit a certain benchmark or goal, then maybe we all go out and get some sort of treat or reward. So we set a goal to just have dinner together at the table Monday through Friday during one week. We told our kids about the goal and that if we made it to Friday, then we could go get a treat. And they were so on top of it! Almost every night since, our kids remind us to have dinner at the table. There are few times now where we make the excuse just to eat at the counter, or on our own. And I know it’s helped our family bond, and increased the love and respect that we all have for each other. 

This class had asked us to establish family values as one of the homework assignments. Another assignment was to establish family rules. We also had to pick a family problem and have a family council on how to resolve the issue, by letting everyone in on the discussion, not just the parents. Just so many good homework assignments, and discussions.

I think one of my favorite parts was being surrounded by other couples and parents who were having struggles, and we all got to hear and know that we weren’t alone. But then we also got a lot of help from each other through each others’ experiences.

Long story long, I highly recommend this class. If you go in humble with an open heart, I think you can learn a lot! I’ll attach their website information. It’s an eight week course. And it’s all remote! Hit me up if you have any questions!!


https://www.uvu.edu/sfp/




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