Special occasions are great for spending quality family time together and catching up with friends and relatives who you don’t get to see often. You may love these people, but spending hours in an enclosed space can be challenging. Here’s how to avoid arguments and bored children who want to go home.
Keeping The Children Occupied
If you’re hosting family and their children, as well as having to look after your own children, there can be complaints of boredom, or some children taking over the toys and games, leaving the others with nothing to do. To ensure you have enough to keep everyone occupied, you can find useful guides online for all age groups, on websites such as Wicked Uncle. Games such as Pop Up Pirate, and Scavenger Hunt – Wacky Search & Retrieve, can keep younger children entertained.
Games and toys which keep children occupied for hours are relatively cheap and can be used whenever you want, so you’ll get great value for your money.
The older children might want to play a ball game outside if the weather is nice. Alternatively, if it snows, everyone can join in with building a snowman or sledding.
Keeping The Adults Occupied
Arguments are more likely to start when people get bored or don’t like what is being suggested. So, while it’s important to keep the children occupied, it’s equally important to keep the adults occupied too.
At least one adult will need to supervise the children, to ensure they don’t fall out over games and other disagreements. You could ask other adults to help out with food preparation, clean-up, or any other tasks which need doing. That makes it easier for you as the host and stops them from getting bored or bringing up old arguments. Most families have some of these, but you want to spend quality time together, not bring them up and ruin the celebration and rare time together.
Doing Something Fun
It’s harder for adults or children to have disagreements if they’re having fun. So, if you can arrange fun activities for everyone to do, this will help avoid disagreements. Give everyone options if possible. So, if have enough space, you could have games in one room and movies in another room.
Leaving Your Feuds And Competitive Streak At The Door
Healthy competition is good when playing games as a family, but if you’re comparing your children’s successes or your own, with other family members and their children, things can get ugly. Don’t boast or try to start an argument. If you know someone’s child is having problems and your child is doing fantastic in that area, don’t choose this time to bring it up. If you think you can help, a private discussion might be better on another occasion. Family celebrations are a time for having fun and catching up, but not upsetting people.
If you dread extended family occasions because of previous disputes and differences, which make them memorable for the wrong reasons, following the above suggestions might help you make them memorable for the right reasons.
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