Maintaining a family can be a difficult process. Not only must you worry about a vast array of daily responsibilities, but ensuring the health and ability of your children can be a difficult one among the bunch. That being said, when viewed as a laundry list of responsibilities, your family can often seem like a drag. However, if this last statement made you cringe a little inside, you are of the right mindset. Having and being part of a family is truly a blessed situation, and no matter the daily difficulty, strange little idiosyncrasies or even temporary internal arguments you deal with, the overall story of your family is likely one to cherish.
So why not cherish it? Summer seems to be fast approaching (is it just us or do the years seem to be flying past more quickly?) and so it never hurts to prepare a little something now. If you plan this right, the Summer of 2018 could be your most beautiful yet. Of course, you are likely to have wonderful summers in the future, but focusing on the here and now affords you more detailed planning and risk-taking. You must make use of the time afforded to you now, after all.
So, here is the guide you’re waiting for. How to prepare your routine and attitude to have a wonderful summer this year, and craft memories your entire family will remember.
Select An Adventure
What experiences do you cherish the most? While laying on a beach for six hours a day on vacation can be a wonderful and relaxing experience, are you particularly contributing anything to the story other than that? It can benefit you and your family immensely to travel on vacation with one another, becoming more intimate through an experience that makes you feel alive. Children don’t particularly remember bouncing a beach ball as strongly as they remember skiing, or swimming with mountains. Even super curated adventures such as fully exploring a waterpark together can be instructive and rewarding for all of you.
The amount of family summer holiday ideas are limitless, but it can be worthwhile to go through a service that curates this form of vacation for you. After all, planning an adventure (for the first time) in relatively uncharted territory that you’re not used to might turn out negatively. It only takes one day forgetting to bring camping supplies or another silly circumstance to turn the day on its head, and with a service at least you have something to fall back on.
Prioritize The Children
Sure, your vacation time is something that you have earned. However, the children should always be the focus. It’s a real shame when you see parents placing their children in a play creche just to sip cocktails and margaritas near the pool. Sure, you should choose things that engage you. But also be sure to have childish fun. This could be as simple and silly as visiting a children’s play, or for teenagers the vacation arcade. Silly activities like this that take an hour from your day keep your children engaged.
This can work tremendously well if you’re hoping to attend a cultural adventure. While looking around the churches and steeples of an old Portuguese town, it can be instructive to allow time for a little wakeboarding or surfing during the day also. Variety always helps to keep the days fresh, and to keep children interested. After all, we all know that despite our intense and deep love for them, an upset child can truly make a day of vacation hard to get through.
This tip is a little more complex than that also. When heading on adventures be sure to routinely plan the food stops you guys take. Stay hydrated, especially in warm weather. Be sure to remember that your children likely can only travel a much shorter distance than you can without tiring out. Pre-plan your parenting a little based on the activities you have in mind. But you’re a great parent, so you’ll be more than capable of this.
Make An ‘Adventure Booklet’
Well, the depth of an adventure needs recording. This is why scribes have been around to draft wonderful tales of the glorious battles and mighty seafaring adventures of old. While we’re not asking you to partake in a battle for territory with your family, the ability to archive this trip is just as important.
But spending too much time taking pictures in the perfect framing and worrying about journaling every five minutes can be a silly process. Instead, consider purchasing a cheap disposable camera for each of your children, or even a Polaroid if you have one laying around. Also, consider bringing along a notebook for each family member, just to carry in their rucksacks. At the end of the day you might all schedule fifteen minutes to write your memories from that day. This could include things that surprised you, things you learned and the funny encounters or situations that naturally developed.
Then, when you come home, and you have a little more time to relax and reflect, you can collate all this information. You needn’t sit with a quill and chronicle the journey like Bilbo Baggins, but you can make a little collage book, filled with the printed disposable photos and polaroids, and cut out quotes or musings that you and your children have. Allow them to draw in this, and do some silly artwork in it yourself too. Consider this the sacred tome of your wonderful adventure, to be lovingly looked back upon when your children are adults. You will thank yourself for the effort.
This also serves a double purpose. Writing down the fun of the day allows your children to tire a little bit, especially if they’ve had an indulgent double helping of sugar at dinnertime and are now currently bouncing from the walls with energy. A happy vacationing child is one who is well rested after all. The same goes for you.
Take care of these tips, you can be sure that 2018’s summer is the wonderful adventure you have hoped for. Now, all you have to do is to look forward until 2019, which is sure to be ever better.
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