By Leah Kennedy
What does your family enjoy doing on vacations? Maybe a cabin in the woods during winter or a white sandy beach during summer? Whatever your family enjoys, a family vacation is a chance to get to know your whole family again and have quality time to spend together.This is an opportunity to really talk with your kids and find out whats going on in their day-to-day lives. Kids usually feel differently when away from the home environment and so you may find it easier to get them to open up.
While family vacations are a great time to connect with your kids, it's not gonna automatically turn you into the perfect family. Communicating with your children is sometimes anything but easy. Try to have a lot of patients understanding. Try to be as flexible as you can and avoid any unnecessary confrontation.
Allow your kids to have a role in the vacation plans. This will make them feel like an important part of the whole process and also gives you some idea of what they enjoy. Doing things you enjoy as well as the kids will make for a much more peaceful trip.
While trying to avoid most day-to-day issues is ideal on your vacation, it's not always practical. Say you have a teen and they are going through all of those puberty issues, they may not be as cooperative as you had hoped. In this case just try to be as understanding as possible. Have a talk with them in private and let them know how anything you are doing is for the best and how this could be a wonderful fun experience for everyone if gone smoothly.
Make sure if traveling in a vehicle for a long period of time that you have plenty of snacks, drinks, and things that will occupy them.Bring things such as:CD or DVD players or hand-held video games. Make plenty of stops so your kids can get out and stretch, go to restroom, etc. Another thing that would be fun is playing little travel games with your kids like I Spy.
When things go well, family vacations are a wonderful way to make lasting memories for you as well as your children. This will hopefully aid in closing any gaps in communication you may have with your children. A new place and a fresh perspective can sometimes make all the difference.
