Forced Family Time?

I was talking with my coworker about how our summers were going and we got into discussing “what is family time”?

I shared that sometimes everyone in the whole family can get in a groove and to do something–family hike, visit to an arcade, day trip with a long ride each way–and all get along. But many times I actually kind of dread going to do these things thanks to varying moods, prickly sibling vibes, or everyone just wanting to do what they want to do and being unable to flex. 

My kids are still young-ish and don’t have much say in family plans and most of the time have to go along with whatever my husband and I choose to do. My coworker has older kids that can be on their own and stay home alone so she finds she has to work to rally her kids to come along to do things. 

We talked about the tension of making everyone come together in an attempt to have “family time” at the risk of having to tolerate various emotions and feelings. Is it worth it? Does anyone care? Does slogging everyone to the park to do a 30 minute hike whilst complaining “it's hot" and “I’m hungry” and “I’m tired” really make a fond lasting memory? 

Maybe? Maybe not? I don’t really know. I DO know that my two kids now sit in separate rows in our SUV when possible to have more peaceful car rides. I also know that they had a blast at an arcade place where they bumped each other endlessly with bumper cars and then raced loops in go karts–this was following a rough morning with lots of bickering. 

So maybe if the (parent) bandwidth is high, then do the family thing. Drag them all along to run errands or have a beach day. And if everyone is in a bad mood, then take the kid that wants to go willingly, or go solo, and let the rest go. Maybe a balance of providing bumper car opportunities with separation is the best approach to make the family time worth it when it happens to roll along nicely. I am going to remember this as we take our last trip for the summer in a few weeks to escape to the beach (literally) right before school starts. 

Do you have tactics to make family time together run smoothly? I would love to hear about it! Email me at cdziembowski@gmail.com.