GEM CITY FAMILY: New year, new family goals of wellness, favoring outdoors over screen time

Five Rivers MetroParks offers "Your 2025 MetroParks Wellness Guide" with multiple program suggestions to help support outdoor activity planning. MetroParks trails vary in length, so participants of its Trails Challenge can start with shorter trails and work up to longer trails, which works for family participation. CONTRIBUTED

Five Rivers MetroParks offers "Your 2025 MetroParks Wellness Guide" with multiple program suggestions to help support outdoor activity planning. MetroParks trails vary in length, so participants of its Trails Challenge can start with shorter trails and work up to longer trails, which works for family participation. CONTRIBUTED

Rather than declare new year resolutions we end up not keeping my family is working together this year for an overall health and lifestyle change. This doesn’t have to cost money or be overwhelming it can start by prioritizing family time, taking a walk after dinner, grabbing whole foods instead of processed junk and being mindful of screen time.

Slowly making changes to our overall lifestyle is the most attainable way to reach our family goals. One goal we have set this year is to enjoy nature more as a family. We are lucky to be surrounded by many amazing parks in the Dayton Metro area.

These incredible parks departments have fantastic family programming that we plan to take advantage of in 2025 to help reach our family goals.

A great place to start is checking out Your 2025 MetroParks Wellness Guide - Five Rivers. They have multiple program suggestions to help support your overall wellness and make 2025 a great year. We plan to join the MetroParks Trails Challenge beginning on Feb. 1, 2025. Trails vary in length, so participants can start with shorter trails and work up to longer trails which is perfect for our family participation.

Greene County Parks & Trails does an amazing job of offering free family programs all year long. Its 2025 events go live Jan. 6, and signup starts Jan. 10. We have enjoyed many of their programs this year, from Santa’s workshop to Homeschool days and nature hikes they offer a little bit of everything for families.

Its fun events fill up quickly ,so make sure to set your reminders to sign up at https://greenecountyoh.myrec.com/info/activities.

The Centerville-Washington Parks District also does a wonderful job of hosting many family centered programs throughout the year. We are looking forward to participating in the Spot the Squirrels Scavenger Hunt. Each week, participants will receive a clue to go out in their parks to search for the squirrels.

Squirrels will only be hiding at each park for one week. This is a great chance to get the family out in nature. To register for this program, check out its website.

Our city and surrounding communities are full of spectacular parks with even more interactive events planned each month. Almost all of these are free or cheap programs that you and your family can partake in so make sure to make 2025 the year you enjoy them all!

Pamela Chandler is a local mom who writes the Gem City Family column for the Dayton Daily News. Reach out to her at thechandlercrew3@gmail.com.

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