Weekends with Your Family

Do you sometimes feel as if the weekend has come and gone before you were even aware of it? Too often, today’s families end up spending the entire weekend shuttling the kids to their various activities and doing chores or working around the outside the house with Jims Trees to get rid of those annoying trees, so that there really isn’t any downtime to be spent together.

By making just a few small alterations in your routine, you will be able to take back control of your activities on the weekends and have the time you need to relax and bond with your family. Here are a few ways to get more of that special time in your weekend:

Picnics

Another way to make your family time more meaningful is to have picnics. You can do this at a local park, at the beach, in the woods, or even in your own backyard. If you have a picnic planned and the weather turns bad, you can always still have your picnic in your living room.

Picnics with the family are so much more than just eating together. You can turn them into learning experiences by explaining the area around where you are to the kids. Take a hike before your lunch and see the flora and fauna. If you are at a beach, walk along the shore and pick up shells. The important thing to do here is just to spend time with each other. These picnics will be memories that your family will look back fondly on for years to come.

Story Chain

One great thing to do in inclement weather is to make a story chain. Begin by creating a story and tell it for 3 minutes. The next person will then take up the tale and add to it for 3 more minutes and so on. Once you have gone through everyone in the room a few times, have one of the children provide the ending for the story.

This will teach the children to use their imagination and, like the picnics, can become memories to be treasured.

Museums

Each city has their own museums and special sights. These can be used as a method of spending time together while learning new things. There will generally be something that will interest everyone in the family at one point or another in a museum. This is especially great if your children have varied interests such as ancient Egypt or volcanoes. Museums will have special exhibits of things like this from time to time and this offers a great opportunity for you to learn things right alongside your children.

Football

If it isn’t football season, you can always toss around the old pigskin with the family on the weekends while shooting the breeze over prospective draft picks. If it does happen to be football season, you can watch the college games on Saturday with the family and watch every game, every Sunday from DIRECTV together too. Some of us already have teams that we have been fans of since birth and you can establish that love of the game in your children too.

Cooking

If you love to bake or cook, one of the most satisfying and fun things to do with your kids is to work as a team in the kitchen on the creation of something delightful to eat. Even tots can help out with everything from making biscuits to making ravioli and soup.

There are many reasons to share this activity with your children. It can help them to develop their reading and following directions skills as well as teaching them a bit about math and chemistry. It can also give them a passion for food that is healthy, nutritious, and delicious.

It is important to try not to work on the weekends. It can be so easy to fall into a routine of working around the clock, be it checking email, finishing up a report or even going in to the office. This is detrimental to both yourself and your family. You need to have a bit of down time and they need to have time with you to bond. Weekends should be spent with your family. If you aren’t the church going type, that just means that you will have extra time of the weekends to spend time with them.

About the author: Katherine Smith is a San Diego based freelance writer who enjoys writing on a wide variety of fitness and entertainment topics. In her free time Kat enjoys the beach and playing volleyball with family and friends. Image: Loren Kerns