How to Really Enjoy the Weekend With the Kids
Weekends are a time to relax, recharge your batteries, play pranks, take up your hobbies and have fun. Oh, if you don’t have kids. Then it’s time to beg them to go outside, judge sibling fights, entertain them every moment they’re not glued to the screen, and count the hours until they get back to school.
If you have kids of a certain age (say, under 10), you know firsthand how difficult it is to truly enjoy the weekend. Gone are the days of getting enough sleep, lingering over breakfast with your favorite periodical, and generally doing a lot of the things you want to do.
You are now a parent. And without school structure, your offspring look up to you as a playmate, an encyclopedia, a diner bitch, and a cruise director. And the parents, who themselves want to relax, cannot catch him in any way. But there are ways to make those off-duty days a little less chaotic and hopefully more enjoyable.
Do housework on Friday night
I know it sounds terrible. But listen to me. In addition to supposed “relaxing” weekends, they include an endless list of household chores: laundry, cleaning the house, sorting mail, organizing the garage, storing documents, preparing food – in short, everything that you don’t do. have time to keep up during the week.
But here’s the thing about little kids: if you’re at home and available, they want you to play with them. Almost all the time. Even if you created three brothers and sisters specifically for them to entertain each other . Children are notoriously bad at waiting and rarely let you complete tasks in a set order. They want to play board games, draw with chalk, build legos, make decorations, and fly airplanes. Everything is with you. (Which, while exhausting, is fun, and you don’t want to miss it.) Get as much homework done on Friday night before the weekend so you have more time and attention to give to your kids.
Leave home early
Imagine: Saturday morning, everyone wakes up rested and happy. You’re drinking coffee, the kids are watching TV, you’re having a brunch, they’re playing peacefully, and boom, it’s 11am. from friendly coexistence to button-pushing moodiness. You know it would be best to get everyone together for a change of scenery, but by the time everyone is ready, it will be practically lunch time (and bedtime for 4 or less). This means you can’t go anywhere now until at least 3:00 pm (insert panicky swearing and trying to get the kids out the door in exactly nine minutes).
Is the day irrevocably ruined if you don’t immediately get up and leave the house on the morning of the weekend? Of course not. But it can be easier to motivate and set a positive tone for the day if everyone doesn’t stay indoors, on top of each other, until noon. (Bonus: Exercising in the morning will help you feel less guilty about your lazy screen time in the afternoon.)
Don’t do too much (or too little)
Even the most extroverted kids can get tired of getting ready and participating in a constant stream of activities: shuffling from soccer practice to playing the piano, to their brother’s minor league game, to the grocery store, and then visiting grandpa. Children are easily overwhelmed by over-planning and transitions between activities. They need time to take a break from the rigors of school and school rules, so set aside at least some time for doing nothing every weekend.
However, while it’s great for us to have large blocks of uninterrupted free time, it can backfire when the house is full of kids. While I wholeheartedly support the value of children being bored when they are young, they feel uncomfortable about it. (Unless you live on a farm with many trees, streams, chickens, horses, rope swings, etc., I imagine your children spending whole happy wild days exploring nature in this case. If this is a fantasy, do not destroy her for me.)
In my country house, boredom can quickly turn into whining, bickering between siblings, or coming up with ways to “amuse themselves” that involve measuring, mixing, managing frustration, or doing some fine motor skills they don’t already have. So don’t collect too many weekends. But, unless you have supernaturally balanced, self-sufficient kids (or a bucolic farm), don’t leave them empty.
Let each child choose and direct activities
Children crave companionship, attention and power. If the connection is broken or their attention and energy reserves are dangerously low, they will try to correct the imbalance. In addition to simple quality communication through conversation or physical affection, give them the opportunity to fill their buckets of attention and power by playing on their terms for a period of time.
Set aside 15 or 30 minutes (or more) for each child and let them take the lead. They choose the game, the rules, the likely nonsensical make-believe scenario. And you’ll be a typical improv partner, saying “yes, and” based on what they’re creating, without any corrections or attempts to take control.
Sharing children with your partner
Have you experienced the joy of exchanging children? Not taking other people’s kids on the weekend – although that sounds good – but carving out a certain period of time when one parent picks up all the children from home, and the other gets “time for himself.” And vice versa, so that both parents get a few hours to do what they want.
When I first started parenting, I wanted us all to take every hike, every playground walk, whatever , as one sweet family unit. Ten years and three kids, I don’t think so anymore. Of course, family excursions to the museum or group picnics in the fresh air are great. But just like lying on the couch and watching a cheesy romantic comedy that you never let yourself indulge in, simply because this time you are at home, you are not working, and the house is blissfully quiet.