Family Time

Family time can either be an amazing experience where everyone really feels they bonded or an absolute nightmare - depending on so many factors.

Let’s take  a typical example. You are trying to get some QT in with your kids and you’ve planned an outing. You’ve put energy and thought into what the kids would like and you’ve carved out this much needed time. Then BAM - one of the kids pipes up and says this outing is stupid and the whole tone is set - in all the wrong ways. I can’t count how many times this has happened in my life and it’s so incredibly frustrating. You just want them to take advantage of the opportunities and not prejudge them. You want everyone to realize that fun is what you make fun. But that perspective is so very lacking at a young age - they’re living in the here and now and do not seem to be able to see past it. So how can we make family time an all around good experience?

If I had the perfect answer to this I think I would be the best selling author to a self help parenting book - but I can offer some ideas and perspective that may help improve both the actual family time and your personal experience with it.

Family time can take on so many faces - in the house with a game night, dinner outdoors where everyone sits down at  once, a short outing or a big trip. Don’t discount small family time opportunities. Not to sound cliche but life really is made up of a compilation of lots of little things. Make small opportunities more often so the family gets into a good groove of just being together and  present.

I think it helps to have perspective on what your expectations are for time together. All too often I find that things are disappointing because my expectations were too high. I don’t recommend having no expectations but my motto in life is to always keep my expectations of others low so I’m surprised when things work out well. It may sound pessimistic but in a way it leaves more room for happiness with situations.

Practically here are some ways to maximize the family time. First, I’d highly recommend making a no personal tech rule for family time - it’s reallt hard to bond when you’re competing with the phone for “face time”. Second, for both the small and big family time experiences - set a time limit. Just like when you are out with your kids anywhere and you want to quit when you’re ahead - family time should have a structure and when you finish don’t drag it out. Meltdowns from over extending the time will likely be all you remember from an outing and can so easily be avoided. This applies to small kids as well as teens (and lets be real, parents also).  Third, don’t make small family times an A basket issue. This is a hard thing for me to live up to but over time I’ve learned - if a child is making an issue about family time and they’re going to ruin it for everyone else - let it be. Sometimes family time can be partial family too. As hard as this is it’s really smart for the general vibe. I’ve let a child stay home and skip a day trip and I even once conceded and let one miss a family vacation. It wasn’t a battle I wanted to fight and it didn’t feel like even if I won the remainder of the family would benefit. I wouldn’t recommend this as Plan A and I’d certainly say this only kicks in when you’re dealing with older teens - but even little kids sometimes can’t hack a small family time experience like a game night when they’re in a rotten mood and it’s OK to say this is one you can sit out. I know I’ll have people who disagree on that but I’ve listened to too many parents complain about a ruined family time experience because they forced a recalcitrant child to be part and I think it’s sad to ruin it for everyone. I would, however, strongly advise that if you need to take this route - make sure the rest have a blast so they talk it up and that child senses they don’t want to miss out again.

Now for the how to ideas - involve the kids in the planning. If you make it too much of a free for all you’re unlikely to come to a Consensus but you could take different approaches to this. A round robin planning opportunity could help. Have a chart where each kid gets a turn to plan the monthly (or weekly or whatever interval) outing. Or which game to play after dinner one weekend night. A little pep talk about people being cooperative with others ideas if they want others to be cooperative about theirs may go far in this arena. Or there could be an ongoing list of activity ideas and you could choose one or two to vote on each time. There are a ton of website which list things to do in your area. If you’re heading to a new place - googling “24 hours in (location ) to find out the highlights of that area. Set a budget before you suggest an idea so you can know what the parameters are. Adding more financial stress to families is never conducive to a relaxing experience.

For big trips - remember less is more. Yes - there are places that are conducive to sunrise to twilight  days - but on more relaxed big trips- go for later mornings (even if your kids don’t sleep late) so there’s a relaxed feeling and people can take their time and have free playing opportunities. In general try to plan but not over plan. Vacations can be relaxing with kids (to a degree) if you don’t feel like every moment needs structure. And (on the topic of the big trips) - expect some parts to be less than family bonding oriented because everyone can’t be “on” all the time and disagreements will happen.  Try not to let them mark the time - like other things - take a step back when they don’t go as planned, find that reset and remind yourself of the big picture - bonding and memories. After a short reset break you can likely take it back to where you want it to be.  One last suggestion for big trips - establish some traditions. These can be little things like a song you sing every time you pass something on the road (going to the beach every summer we sang “it’s a grand old flag” every time we passed an American flag) or games you play on the road or a specific game you always play in vacation (long evenings of Risk for those old enough to remember it). You could choose anything but you’d be amazed to hear your kids talk about these years later with such fondness. This only hit me recently when my oldest kids (some already in college) were telling the younger (who are still in elementary) about those things from past trips.