How to have family quality time? Young families find support with sorting through everyday routines:

füdoo Boards help families focus on the art of living. In today’s hectic world where family schedules are overbooked and under enjoyed, quality family time seems to be slipping out the back door.  Living a relaxed, simple life is a goal of many young families with children but is practically a lost art.  Sarah Vinch began searching for a simple way to bring quality into everyday family routines when her children were three and one years old.  This journey led her to the invention of the füdoo Board system.   After three years of research and development in her family home, Ms. Vinch unveiled the 1^st Edition füdoo Board to the public.   The füdoo Board leads parents and their young children down the path towards higher quality lifestyles by focusing on and recording four activities a day; eating, drinking, moving and thinking.  A füdoo family eats the best food for their bodies, drinks water, moves their bodies everyday and thinks and acts on their interests.  Then they record it on their füdoo Board and talk about it.   There are a number of distinct details to the füdoo Board that lend themselves to making it a useful tool for those families yearning for more quality time together.  With bright colors and bold graphics, füdoo Boards can be hung in the kitchen or placed at the focal, dinner table and enjoyed by the eyes and fingers of both children and adults.  The front of the board is the “food” side where families record what types of food have been eaten that day.  The food groups are designated by graphics and füdoo “teaching words” which help the parent relate why the child needs to eat the food placed at the family table.  The 90 food magnets are used for recording the family meals and snacks, but may also be used to plan meals with children or explain an easy way of creating a balanced meal to eat, coined by Sarah, as a Rainbow Meal. The back of the füdoo Board is the “do” side which features 12 healthy Move! and Think! activities for the child and parent to record throughout the day.   Each activity is age appropriate for families with children ages 2-8 to record what they plan to do or what they have already enjoyed in their day.  The füdoo Board is also meant to be a tool for children learning to lead conversations about their day at the dinner table.  There is also a “share a meal” activity space where families are encouraged to eat together at least once a day.  Lastly, there is a “dream” activity space, meant to denote a nap time for younger children and quiet time for older children and parents in order to add to the quality of their active day.  füdoo Boards are a great crutch for parents wanting to extend quality time at the dinner table.  Elizabeth, a füdoo mom says, “We love to use our füdoo Board at the dinner table to let my 5 year old explain about her day to her father.  We write a sentence in the middle about her favorite part of the day and then she actually reads it!  Dinnertime lasts longer when she can be part of the conversation.” Jen, another füdoo mom, pops in to see her twins at lunch time at her on-site child care center.  She says, “We love the routine of filling out our füdoo Board at lunch time together.  It really gives us something to talk about.  I really feel in touch with their day.”  The füdoo Board was developed by founder, Sarah Vinch in 2007 as she began to realize she needed a simple way of tracking the food her children needed to grow properly.  She used her early childhood and elementary teaching experience, along with her parenting skills and began to develop the füdoo Board system.  Sarah found support from Registered Dieticians who have also helped her develop the Board for correct nutrition.  She has written a füdoo “How To” handbook and has developed her own interactive website, www.fudooboards.com .  Use of her family’s own füdoo Board has lead her and her family not only to better health, but to a much richer, simpler, and rewarding lifestyle.   She is confident other families can find simple rewards by using their own füdoo Board.