Every year we look forward to the holiday break as a chance to talk about family traditions and discuss a key life lesson “ala” Mom. We have found that a simple one goes over best with the wide age range of our children.
While we all look forward to the holidays, we have to be honest that having the children full-time for the two-week break can be tough–even for the best super moms. Luckily, travel, the relatives and the hubbies help to keep the children occupied for a bit. We all know that those days go by too quickly and we end up searching for new creative and educational ways to keep the kids occupied. We can only watch “Elf” three times, the “Grinch” four times all while keeping video games at a healthy minimum.
So we try to think of a fun way to teach our children a new life lesson that we can discover during our family experiences. One of our holiday traditions is to watch a movie on Christmas Day. This year we watched Billy Cystal’s hysterical “Parental Guidance“. With many funny antics, the movie taught us how important it is to think of the feelings of others first. (A big lesson for us adults is to remember this with our own parents. It is hard being the sandwich generation but that is another topic…). We discussed imagining walking in other shoes to understand how they are feeling. We emphasized how especially important this is when dealing with family. All the children listened astutely and at least pretended to imagine. The peace and calm lasted about an hour before the arguing and the wrestling started again. We are hopeful that the life lesson took root. We can say as parents at least the Seed is sown…
What time of activities does your family do you over holiday break? Any fun suggestions to keep the children occupied? Any success as a Super Mom?
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