The Benefits of a Family Chat

Is your family on a chat in the Messages app or a chat thread of some kind? 

We had fun picking an avatar and a group name for our chat.  It’s not too hard to put everyone’s phone numbers into the recipient text box; it just takes someone to do it! 

These are some of things we post about in our family chat:

*Coordinated times and places for informal gatherings, such as a dinner.

*Invites for gatherings, such as a reunion, wedding, or funeral.

*Something new or notable in our lives. 

*Cheerful words of encouragement.

*Frustration or sadness when we’ve been having a particularly hard time.

*Heartfelt words of comfort and love.

*Zoom links for special church and family meetings everyone can watch.

*Milestones the grandkids are making, like first steps, and funny photos of childhood antics. 

*Pictures of items left behind at a gathering.

*Birthday videos from Google Photos (using + highlight video) for my kids and their spouses.

*Birthday sediments.

*Interesting topics we are learning about, sometimes with a link to a talk or website. 

*Good books we’ve read and short discussions. 

*Pictures we’ve taken at an outing or event, and if too many, we share a link to a shared album in Google Photos or Photos. 

*Words of gratitude for things that are done for each other. 

*Kind and funny emotions emojis and reaction gifs over game scores, haircuts, new attire, a job well done, etc. 

So many things to help bind a family together using a family chat! Keep it positive, supportive, and pinned to the top of your Messages threads!