Start a Family Game NightWhat's a great way to have fun as a family while reducing stress? Establish a family game night just like Hasbro's ad campaign suggests. Really. We took the bait and have established this as a weekly household tradition. It is not only great fun but also a chance to bond as a family (we're big on that at Stress Dynamics). Most every Sunday evening we round up the teenager, grab the Scrabble Board, snag the dictionary and battle it out for the crossword championship! We're all a pretty good match so winning is quite a challenge, especially when my brat turns "toxic" into "toxicity" on a triple-word score. We've managed to stay pretty consistent with doing this each weekend. Occasionally we have to drop it off our schedule because there's too much going on, but this is rare (and we feel cheated when we can't play our game). Sometimes the teenager is reluctant to play, but hey, we do like our parents did and we force her! The grumbles soon fade after play begins as she will never pass up an opportunity to beat us. We know that her attempts to weasel out of a game are really a test to see if we are going to be consistent with this family game night thing. It took some effort to get it started, it takes some effort to keep it going, but the time we spend as a family is truly worth it. I believe it was Plato who said: "You can learn more from a man in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." You can learn more about what is going on in your family with this fun time together and you can also reduce your stress. To learn more about how to establish a family game night check out this link to the Hasbro site: http://www.hasbro.com/games/en_US/familygamenight/Host-Your-Own.cfm?src=endeca | 
