4 Summer Activities to Bond with Your Family
The annual summertime lull can quickly lose its charm when your family lacks interesting and fun activities in which to engage. Your children and spouse’s boredom may soon turn to frustration and anger that they turn back on you. Rather than cope with a contentious family relationship, you can keep everyone happy and enjoy a closer bond with your kids and spouse by taking on these four fun and memorable summertime activities.
Go Camping
Your kids may quell their boredom, at least temporarily, by playing on their smartphones or tablet computers. Their addiction to their electronics leaves little time for you, however.
When you want to bond closer to your kids as well as your spouse, you should plan a family camping trip. A camping trip spanning three to four days takes your kids away from the WiFi signal at home and also compels them to interact with you.
If you suspect they may grow grouchy during the trip, you should be sure to include fun camping activities like swimming, fishing, boating, or water skiing. Many city, county, and state parks have facilities where you can pitch a tent or park an RV and spend a few relaxing days with your loved ones.
Travel Abroad
Another way to get the family out of their comfort zone involves traveling abroad. A trip to a global city like London can be the ideal opportunity to bond with your family while taking in amazing sights and learning about history.
You can plan a memorable trip to London and elsewhere by using rental resources and using a London itinerary planning tool. Your family may return home refreshed and enthused about their new overseas adventures.
If you worry about finding hotel accommodations that will satisfy everyone in your family, you may find a better lodging alternative by renting a private flat. A private flat gives you amenities like linens and flatware as well as access to a laundry and a kitchen that you can use to feed and take care of your family while you are in London.
Plant a Garden
When your kids are home for all three meals each day during the summer, you as a parent face a unique challenge in stretching your grocery budget. You can have enough food on hand and also create a unique way to bond with your family by planting and tending a garden together.
The garden can become everyone’s responsibility to plant, tend, and harvest. By spending time out in the garden together, you get a chance to talk with your kids and find out what is going on in their lives. You also all get the satisfaction of watching your garden grow into a harvest that will benefit and feed the entire family.
Volunteer Together
Kids and teenagers today are sometimes prone to griping out of boredom or frustration. They do not realize how good they have it until they are exposed to situations and people less fortunate than they are.
When you want to remind your children to enjoy the respite that summer provides as well as bond with them in a meaningful and rewarding way, you may consider signing the family up for a volunteer opportunity in your local area. As publications like Psych Central point out, filling bags at a food pantry, serving meals at a homeless shelter, or reading to the elderly at a nursing home are all volunteer examples that help the community and foster family bonding.
Summer is the ideal time of year to bond with your family. A number of activities allow you this opportunity. You can get close to your kids and spouse and create memories for a lifetime by engaging in any of these four family bonding summertime activities.