How to Empower Your Family Adventures: Creating the Argument-Free Zone
Do your kids always agree on what to do and where to go, do they happily concede when their brother or sister’s idea is chosen over theirs? If so, I would like to borrow them for my next holiday, seriously, PLEASE. I’m guessing not many of you said yes to the question above. If I give my kids two choices and they are together, they will almost always choose the opposite of the other one. The social scientist in me feels the need to explore this further, maybe next time I will make them write their choices down and see if this still holds, but I digress. Given their inherent need to disagree with each other, there have been days when we can’t agree on what to do and eventually I give up in defeat. The good news is I have found a few fun ideas that seem to take the wind out of their disagreements and make all our lives much easier. The ideas below have worked for us when we travel as well as when we want to figure out how to spend that rare free Saturday together. Check them out if you want to enjoy the illusive calm of the argument-free zone, even if just for a short visit.
The Surprise Day
I first stumbled onto this idea when my kids were in elementary school, we tried to create some family time together on a day here and there when we didn’t have kids’ sports, birthday parties or other commitments. The dream was that we would see what we all felt like doing and make an adventure out of it, go for a hike, explore a new part of the city, and try a new place to eat. This fell apart pretty quickly as my kids both had very different ideas for a fun day. Next, we tried taking turns and letting everyone plan one day but this also had it’s why do we have to do that, I don’t like … challenges. In came the Surprise Day, instead of seeking input on what we would do, we set off in our car and told the kids we were having a surprise day with 4-5 stops. The kids were excited by this prospect and began guessing by the direction we were driving where we might be heading. We did all the same things we would have done before, visited a museum, walked along the breakwater, flew kites, explored Chinatown, checked out a new park, and usually found a yummy snack. As soon as the kids started to fade at one activity, we let them know we were off to our next stop and the guessing began again. Our surprise days usually lasted about 4-5 hours, and we all came home happy and recharged. Even though our kids are now teens they still share stories and have lots of great memories of our surprise days.
I decided to give this same approach a try by planning a weekend away with our extended family to Great Wolf Lodge (a water theme park that we could drive to in Washington State). The kids knew we were going somewhere, we gave them a clue in the car every hour or so into our trip until they finally guessed where we were headed. They were extra surprised to find their grandparents and cousins on the ferry with us and we had an amazing time together. While the kids loved the holiday, they said that next time they would want to know where we are going ahead of time, as part of the fun for them is looking forward to the trip and counting down until we leave. Check out my countdown calendars if you and your kids like a good countdown for your next adventure.
Everyone Gets a Pick
Out of both the surprise day and our one foray into a surprise trip, a new idea took hold. This one is our favourite and is how we now plan all our trips together. Before we go on a holiday we sit down and talk about where we are going and what types of things there are to do there, we do a little age-appropriate research, whether this is flipping through travel guides from the library or looking at ideas online. Everyone, including the big kids, gets to pick something they really want to do, and we plan our trip around this. On bigger trips, these picks become the kids’ Christmas or birthday gifts and we buy tickets to something they have chosen for the whole family. After pouring over ideas for a couple of weeks on all the things we could do when visiting our friends in Singapore, here’s what we chose:
- Night Safari
- Legoland Malaysia
- Gardens by the Bay
- Stay in an accommodation on stilts over the water, we made this a reality for a weekend at Telunas (this one was mine from my travel bucket list)
While the list above were some pretty amazing things, by no means do these all need to be expensive, my daughter recently chose to find all the best shaved ice on Maui as her pick and for that same trip my husband picked visiting a special beach to see the turtles.
This approach works for several reasons, first, we all get to do something really important to us, it was my son’s dream to go to Legoland for years before we got there, and this has led to some pretty amazing adventures. There isn’t any grumbling over doing something that isn’t your pick because we all know how important the activity is to the person who picked it and that we will each get our special activity/day of our choosing. Another bonus that I have heard from our kids and friends we travel with, as we use this approach even when travelling with other families, is how many things we tried that we wouldn’t have done if we weren’t together, or a new place that we were a bit reluctant to visit (think caves and catacombs) but we bravely faced our fears and ended up loving it. Finally, by agreeing on our plans before we go, and often paying for them ahead, our kids aren’t asking to do more when we are away. They are excited by what we get to do and know that this is what we have chosen to prioritize.
Audiobooks
I couldn’t write about the argument-free zone without a quick shout-out to audiobooks. We love to listen to books together and there is nothing better than the quiet that comes over the car when we are engaged in a good story. We have even arrived home from a road trip to the kids asking if we can just sit in the driveway and listen a little bit longer. Whether you are headed on a plane ride or a road trip, I can’t stress enough the quiet that comes from a great family audiobook and some road snacks. My daughter put together a list of family books below for you to give this a try. You can find these on Audible or borrow them for free from your local library.
Under 10
- The Land of Stories by Chris Colfer
- Spirit Animals Series, multiple authors
- The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
Tweens
- Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
- Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
- 39 Clues Series by Rick Riordan
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
- A Tale of Magic by Chris Colfer
- Keepers of the Lost Cities Series by Shannon Messenger
Teens
- This Poison Heart and This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron
- The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Series by Michael Scott
- The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
I’m hoping that you found a couple of new ideas for both home and travel that will result in fewer disagreements, less I don’t knows, and will get you to the fun stuff even faster. If you want more travel tips and tricks, please consider signing up for our newsletter.