Full article from the Term 2 No 2 2007 Newsletter

Family Fun during the Winter Holidays

The winter holidays often bring cold weather and it's not always the most appealing to be outside. Whilst we might look forward to children being home (and they usually look forward to a break from school), it is sometimes a challenging time for children and parents. As much as most parents and children enjoy the chance to be more relaxed without the need to keep as many timelines, it is also a time where planning and knowing how to spend the time can sometimes seem quite daunting.

Some parents are working full time or part time outside of the home and so often there is the preliminary practical issues of whether leave can be taken, as well as who and how the children will be looked after. After school care, and vacation care programs in many areas offer a variety of opportunities for children part and full time.

However it isn't always easy to access these programs. It is important not to feel guilty if you work outside the home. As parents, guilt seems to come easily and often. However, if your child is engaged in a safe, familiar environment, home or vacation care or with friends or family, the main aim is for them to feel happy, relaxed and to enjoy their holidays.

If and when you are home with your children during the holidays, it is important to consider what opportunities you all want to share. For children in their first years of school and preschool, too many extra special events are not needed. Don't feel you have to have friends over every day or go out every day. A movie, a shopping trip, a friend to play a few times, going on a tram or train or bus ride are all simple and non expensive experiences that the whole family can enjoy.

Having a picnic in the backyard or local park, playing games outside like hide and seek, providing lots of dress ups, construction paper to draw and cardboard boxes to paste with, all of these types of things encourage children to play productively at home and not come to expect that the holidays, or life in general, is all about being constantly entertained!!

Try to limit TV and DVDs and computer games. You might have days when there are screen free
days. This can be planned in advance so children have time to organise or plan other things they
may wish to do. It is amazing how creative they can be if the TV is unavailable sometimes.
For children in the middle and upper primary years, friendship, going over to other's places, listening
to music, playing on the computer, these are important things for children in this age group. It is
important to try to pitch a balance for this age group. They are still children, even though they may
view themselves as almost adolescent.
Children also require some times just to be at home, just hanging about, sleeping in, just relaxing
and not feeling that every minute has to be filled with things to do. You might with this age group,
have a family meeting just before the holidays begin.
Children really enjoy having regular family meetings, perhaps once a week or fortnight. At this
meeting, you can draw up a plan, some suggestions, some of the things that ideally, the children
would like to do. This provides opportunity to plan in advance, to help your children learn to
negotiate, to prepare, to compromise.
You might organise how much money they are able to have to spend and manage for themselves
over the holiday period.
The meeting and plan doesn't have to be too rigid or even adhered to all of the holidays, but it
provides some ideas and helps you to gain an idea of what your children are interested in and how
they are viewing the holidays. I think it is a good idea to have a few screen free days with this age
group too.
All children need to be outside, active, physical, playing around. Even though the weather is colder,
children don't catch a cold by being outside in the cold for short periods of time.

Interestingly, recent research reports that when adults are asked to think back and describe what they most enjoyed and remembered about their childhood, most respondents replied with things like, " when we played out in the backyard and Dad or Mum mowed the lawn." When we went to the beach for a picnic." When we went for a drive with the family". These are ordinary events. They appear to have real meaning and fond memories for adults. We need to ensure that our children collect a range of happy, simple and fond memories of their childhood and family lives.

As we often talk about in this consultancy, lives are too rushed, hurried and filled with entertainment and doing, rather than relaxed, unhurried and being.

I encourage you to arrive at the holidays with a mindset of relaxing, taking time, being simple, not getting caught up in entertaining and filling each day with big events. Some special outings are wonderful. But so is just being at home, playing, being, having a few friends over, just hanging about.

Enjoy the holidays if you can and ensure your children relax and collect happy memories that they will remember as they grow up.

Kathy Walker