One moment they are just starting to crawl, the next they are already in elementary school: children grow up so fast and time seems to fly. That makes it all the more important to make the most of every moment with the family and plan wonderful experiences for the children. We’ll give you tips on how to best spend your free time together so that you and the kids have fun and remember these moments fondly for a long time to come.

Set A Family Day

During the week, most families have such a busy schedule that there’s hardly any room for moments together. While at least one parent is at work, the kids like to pursue their hobbies after school. Then there’s homework to do, and after dinner it’s already bedtime again. Yet it is so important for family life to spend time together, no matter how stressful everyday life may be.

Time To Slow Down

That’s why it’s very important to schedule a fixed day with your family when there’s nothing on the agenda but time together. Of course, a day at the weekend is best suited for this. On this family day, the time is only for each other and for no one else.

No text messages or e-mails are read or written, the cell phone is at best turned off completely or put into airplane mode. Then there is no danger that the family day will be disturbed by anything – and a little abstinence from the smartphone certainly does no harm. Just as taboo are any tasks from the to-do list that are waiting to be done. Instead, you can give your concentrated attention to your family. On family day, the children and their interests have top priority. Everything else will have to wait.

Shift work or certain hobbies don’t always make it possible to schedule an entire day for the family. An alternative is a joint family evening that takes place once a week. Whether it’s family day or family night, the kids are sure to enjoy this nice family tradition and look forward to it all week – no matter how big or small they are.

Activities For The Family Day

Such a day or evening with the family does not need a lot of programs. After all, the main thing is to enjoy the time together and relax from the stressful everyday life in the company of your loved ones. Cook together with the children their favorite dish or order pizza. After dinner, everyone gathers on the couch for a movie night together with popcorn – of course, the kids get to choose the movie.

Family day is also a nice opportunity to play board games and unpack new games. Smaller activities such as a trip to the favorite ice cream shop around the corner, to the swimming pool or to play in the park, are also ideal for family day. The main thing is that the kids enjoy it and you do something together, without stress and hustle.

Advantages Of Family Time

Not only for children, but in general for you as a family, it is immensely important to regularly spend so-called quality time together that is solely about family.

No matter what activities are planned for this family time – always encourage the children to talk as well. The best way, of course, is for you and your partner to set a good example. Tell them what you experienced during the week. What was good about it, what might have annoyed you, what were you particularly happy about? The children will eventually join in and tell you a lot on their own. Also, talk about things that affect the family. This can be anything from reminders to vacation planning. Such debates of any kind simply do you good. In this way, conflicts and misunderstandings can be resolved and family peace restored.

In general, such joint activities as the family day promote the cohesion among themselves, moreover, they strengthen the security and trust between the family members. In the future, the children will be even more open with you about their concerns and confide in you when there are problems. In such family rounds, they experience the support they need. It’s a wonderful experience that you soon won’t want to miss.

Planning Weekend Trips

Unabhängig davon, ob Ihre gemeinsame Familienzeit unter der Woche oder am Sonntag stattfindet, sollten Sie hin und wieder einen größeren Ausflug mit der Familie machen. Das muss nicht allzu oft oder gar regelmäßig sein, schließlich sollen solche Tages- oder Wochenendtouren etwas Besonderes bleiben. Dann freuen sich die Kinder umso mehr, wenn es wieder soweit ist.

Ideas For Day Trips

There are many possibilities for a day trip with the whole family. How about a day at an amusement park or a visit to the zoo? Animal parks or a trip to one of the nationwide Sea Life aquariums also go over well with the kids. It is particularly exciting for them to see animals with their own eyes that they otherwise only know from books or television.

Amusement parks are suitable for the whole family and offer a comprehensive amusement program, sometimes even for younger children. So a trip to an amusement park is great fun for everyone. A little less action-packed, but all the cozier is a picnic in the countryside. In summer, this can be combined with a day of swimming at the lake or in the outdoor pool.

If you prefer sports activities with your children on the weekend, a trip to the nearest high ropes course is ideal. There the children can let off steam while climbing and balancing in the forest. If the weather does not cooperate, you can go to a climbing hall.

A bike ride through the area together is also a nice day trip. For hiking enthusiasts, there is a well-developed network of hiking trails throughout Germany, which are also suitable for hiking tours with children. For children, a walk through the forest is also always exciting. They learn about animals and plants and experience nature up close.

If you are walking with your family, you can prevent any boredom by preparing various games such as a scavenger hunt or singing hiking songs. For younger children, a trip to the nearest playground or some quality time in the backyard at home will do the trick. Especially inquisitive children will get their money’s worth in the museum, because many exhibitions are aimed at young visitors. Other museums offer special guided tours for children and in so-called experimental museums, children are allowed to try out individual experiments themselves. In open-air museums, which are always built according to a certain era or theme, the whole family learns in an interesting and vivid way how people used to live. Also exciting is a visit to the planetarium, where you and your family can watch new galaxies being formed or comets passing by in the sky.

Ideas For Weekend Trips

If you want to leave everyday life behind and go away for the weekend with the family, an exciting program for the children is a must. Special family parks offer a particularly varied program. The leisure activities range from swimming to mini-golf to climbing and take place partly outside and partly in the main building of the family park. Thus, even in bad weather no boredom arises. In general, the offer is designed so that families have the opportunity to spend a great time in the family park all year round. Some family parks also offer child care. During this time, parents can take care of themselves.

For children, camping in nature is also always an exciting thing. Especially when they get to go on a little night hike with dad late at night and explore the pitch-black surroundings with their flashlight. And a campfire always exerts a certain fascination on children as well. The ideal place for spooky and exciting stories. There is bound to be a nice campsite near where you live for a camping trip with the kids.

With children, you can also spend the weekend on a farm nearby. There are many family-friendly farms where parents can relax and children can experience a great program. They get to pet the animals on the farm and look over the farmers’ shoulders as they work. Sometimes they also get to help take care of the animals. Otherwise, kids can ride horses and ponies or just go exploring and check out the farm.

Celebrating Special Occasions In A Fitting Manner

Probably the biggest event for parents is the birth of their child. From then until elementary school and beyond, there are always special occasions to celebrate, from the first birthday to enrollment to graduation. But you should celebrate such occasions not just because that’s what you do, but also because it’s good for the bond between you and your child.

Share Special Moments

Children develop rapidly, especially in the first year of life. From week to week, they make sometimes larger, sometimes smaller developmental steps, and there are always very special moments: The first birthday, the first day at kindergarten, or starting school. Some of these moments are unique in a child’s life and should therefore be celebrated all the more consciously.

This does not mean that you should invite the whole family to a party every time. Rather, it means that you as parents should experience and enjoy such moments together with your child. After all, something like the first tooth, the first steps, the first porridge or the first word only happens once. Such moments cannot be repeated. So it’s all the more wonderful when both parents are lucky enough to be present at such moments and share in the joy of the child’s developmental progress. This brings you even closer together as a family.

Always A Reason To Celebrate

Of course, the big events in your child’s life don’t end with the start of school. There are many other special occasions that you will celebrate together as a family. Because even for big children, teenagers and young adults it is very important that they always feel the cohesion in the family and the interest in their further development.

For this reason, you should always convey this interest to your child – in everyday life as well as continuing to do so at major milestones on the way to adulthood. These are occasions such as graduating from school, passing a driver’s license test, and entering the workforce.

Capturing Memories

Beautiful moments shared with your own family are something you want to capture forever. Photos and souvenirs are perfect for bringing back memories of trips, vacations, and other experiences. This works best when the memento pieces are decorated and integrated into the décor. With the following creative ideas, the memories will always remain present.

Present Photos As A Collage

From every trip or vacation, there are certain photos that best represent the experiences and special moments. The memories of them are best shown off when these photos are arranged as a collage on the wall.

What you need for this are the desired photo motifs and the appropriate number of picture frames. If the frames have a similar style, the result is a coherent overall concept. However, such a collage will be particularly impressive if you combine frames of different sizes, shapes, and designs.

But not all frames are available in the desired style and size. Therefore, it may be difficult to implement the picture frame collage according to your own ideas. Therefore, easier and less complicated is a digital collage that you can create with various design options. The layout, in which you can insert a variety of photos and arrange them as you wish, is freely selectable. So is the background and the material on which the collage is printed, such as poster paper, canvas, or acrylic glass. If you wish, you can add a saying or text to your collage. Thus, your photo collage is a beautiful, artistic souvenir and at the same time a real eye-catcher for the wall.

A Photo Canvas Refines Moments

Another way to dedicate an appropriate place to particularly beautiful snapshots from your vacation is to have the desired motif printed on canvas. In this way, a photo becomes a real work of art. You can additionally enhance the photo by changing the color scheme or the lighting conditions afterward with an image editing program. With such effects, your shots will look especially good.

A Photo Book Full Of Memories

Baby’s first year, snapshots from birth to school enrollment, or vacation trips as a family – such occasions usually produce tons of photos. After all, as parents, you want to capture as many moments in your child’s life as possible as snapshots.

With such a large selection of photos, it’s often difficult to choose just a few to adorn the living room wall in a picture frame in the future. The result: the photos are filed away in drawers or in a PC folder, where they are forgotten.

To prevent this from happening, you can design a photo book in which any number of photos can find their place. You decide yourself which format the photo book should have and how you want to arrange the selected photos. You can also set background colors and add text and graphic elements as you wish. In this way, the photos can be beautifully staged and are always ready to hand on the shelf in book form.

Arrange Mementos In A Picture Frame

Photos are not always the only mementos of the last trip or summer vacation. Children, in particular, like to collect small things such as particularly pretty stones, bird feathers, or shells that they find on their forays. Tickets from zoos, other excursion destinations and airline tickets are also reminders of the wonderful times spent together. Often, these things first end up on some shelf and, after the next tidying up, eventually disappear in a box or drawer until they are rediscovered – sometimes only after years. For many things, the end of the line is the trash can.

The alternative to this is object frames. These are picture frames with a larger distance between the glass and the back wall. This allows you to arrange plastic objects and objects in front of the photo. This combination of objects and photo make the memorabilia very special. In addition, you can enhance the vacation feeling with sand or homemade letters that form the name of the resort. You can also beautifully arrange small mementos in the compartments of a set box, so that they not only remind you of the shared experiences, but are also artful room decorations. Depending on the model, the compartments are of different sizes. Thus, there is a place for all souvenirs.