Whatever resolutions (if any) you plan to make for 2014, make sure you put “be a connected family” on your buzz list. Being “connected” is the new parenting manta. Quite apart from the fact that advocates such as Dr Karyn Purvis (in her book The Connected Child) suggest we all put our “ambition and the desire for more material goods” on hold to be there 100% for the kids (one presumes Dr Purvis also means to put the bills on hold as well), being connected sounds like thoroughly good advice for modern families.
Being there for your kids takes many different forms, of course. But you can’t beat sharing some meaningful time together for soldering the bonds. Shared memories, quiet moments, fun experiences and a little adventure together is the making of a lifelong loving family. Do things your way, and no other.
Here are 52 things we’re aiming to do this year… and hopefully we’ll get through the list!
1. Go roller skating
Santa brought Cappers some roller skates for Christmas. Oh my! We plan to bring back a little retro dagginess (or totes cooldom – have you seen those roller derby girls? WOW) into our lives. The kids will love it even more than my man will hate the idea of it and I guarantee we’ll have an off-beat, affordable and memorable night out together.
2. Go swimming at your local
We’ve got a pool in the backyard (and if you don’t, chances are you have a regular friendly backyard pool to swim in), but we don’t make the mistake of overlooking our local public pool. Swimming in the deep end is fun enough, but many local pool also have water slides, inflatables, fountains and wave pools to explore.
3. Find a brand new beach to love
4. Make a memory jar
Grab a jar, a pen and a stack of plain note cards. Write down special moments as they happen throughout 2014 and put the card in the jar. Big things, small things, funny things and crazy things – whatever your family thinks is worth remembering. On new year’s eve next year, take the jar out and reminisce about all the lovely things you got up to – if you remember, which we didn’t this year. Oh well, we’ll still keep the cards forever.
5. Start a collection together
6. Go for a walk each evening after dinner
7. Visit an obscure country town fair
From the local show (we’ll be there in May this year!) to foodie extravaganzas, just about every town in Australia has a cute country event that is virtually impossible not to love. Just for starters, your family might enjoy:
- The Blue Mountains Ukelele Festival in Katoomba NSW in February
- The Devil Country Muster in Smithton TAS held in February
- Fest la Frog held on French Island VIC in April
- The National Folk Festival in Canberra ACT in April
- Arts in the Valley in Kangaroo Valley NSW in June
- The Henley-on-Todd in Alice Springs NT in August
- Camooweal Drovers Camp Festival in Camooweal QLD in August
- Ceduna Oyster Fest in Ceduna SA in October
- The Kirra Kite Festival in Kirra QLD in November
8. Bake some bread together
9. Read a book aloud each night
Fine everyone-in-the-family books to start you off include The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton;Watership Down by Richard Adams; Charlotte’s Web by EB White; The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis; and absolutely anything by Roald Dahl.
10. Go fishing
Fishing isn’t half as daunting as it seems. It’s so easy to throw a line in off a reel and see what happens. Karla talked us through the basics earlier in 2013 and I can attest that it’s a super-fun activity for both kids and adults. Even more fun when you head off before sunrise when the “fish are biting”. The kids love it!
11. Have a family video night
Not just any old movie – a good old-fashioned slide-show style video night. The perfect opportunity to showcase all those crazy little videos we take of each other all the time. Note to self: take more crazy little videos in 2014 too!
12. Take up tennis together
Booking a court is cheap as chips (our school books out the school court for just $5 an hour) and just about everyone in the neighbourhood will have a spare racquet to lend you, so what are you waiting for. You might must have a little Lleyton or Venus hiding under a bushel and who knows where 2014 could take you after such a discovery!
13. Do a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle
14. Hit your local farmers’ market more often
15. Go op-shopping
16. Host an old-fashioned talent show
After the success of last year’s Christmas extravaganza, I’m wondering just how involved I’m prepared to be with the kids? Enough to embarrass myself silly? While they’re up there doing belting out their school song or playing their three chords on the piano, I could be mentally rehearsing my own big reveal: Mum does Rhianna! Or something! Go on, have a go!
17. Bake an amazingly complicated birthday cake for Dad
18. Spend the day at your local zoo
19. Have a homemade pizza night
Invite everyone you know – that’s the beauty of homemade pizza, the kids can make lots and lots and lots pretty much all by themselves! Here’s a great sauce recipe and you can cook your pizzas on the BBQ if you’ve got a hood – just turn it up as high as it will go, put the pizza straight onto the hot plate, put the hood down and check the pizza often.
20. Start a family vegetable garden
This has so far eluded us beyond the odd tomato and cucumber, but we only need to grow enough for a weekly salad to feel exceptionally proud of ourselves. Put in rocket, carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers. Beware – the gardening bug will soon bite more than your tomatoes and soon you’ll find yourself weaving your own trellises for beans, eggplants, peas and more. It’s addictive!
21. Play board games at least once a month
22. Make a bird feeder for flying visitors
23. Write a song together
Even if you set it to music you already love, creating music together is one of the happiest things you can do as a family. Make the lyrics a funny expose of family life, or a heartfelt love poem to each other. Sing your song often, even if it’s to the tune of ‘Call me maybe’ (as ours sadly is).
24. Catch some bugs together
Examine, take field notes and let them go again (unless they are the ‘not welcome’ kind of aphid-type bugs, in which case me or LOML can be the ones to ‘let them go’)…
25. Go random gift giving
Take some carefully wrapped small gifts up to the local nursing home, just because. It’s good for the kids to visit with the elderly and so appreciated by everyone. Call first, but I bet you’ll be most welcome.
26. Go bushwalking somewhere new
27. Have a dance-off in the living room
28. Take in a twilight picnic
Decamp dinner for a twilight picnic by the water somewhere. It makes your standard meal something truly special and going out unexpectedly at the end of the day feels like a real adventure. No crowds at the barbecues and often an entire glorious spot all to yourselves – dinner picnics are the biz! Even if you just stop by the local for fish and chips.
29. Make puppets and put on a show
You can make a puppet out of just about anything (paper bags are fun), shadow puppets are also awesome or you can even just use the kids’ soft toys. Make up the script and have a ball putting it all together. If you’re feeling game you can even video it to watch again and again (you can bet the kids will!).
30. Play 20 Questions
31. Volunteer to get your hands dirty
Your local council probably runs a permaculture or sustainable allotment where your family can volunteer to help out. You learn about gardening and good earth practices while getting a great workout in the sunshine and fresh air. You’d be surprised how much the kids love working together as part of a group (it’s amazing what new faces will make a child do). Try places like Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane; Fagan Park Eco Garden in Hornsby; Northbank in Bellingen; the Port Phillip EcoCentre; or visit the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network.
32. Light a cracking bonfire
Check fire restrictions (obviously) and on a clear night get the fire pit pumping! Carefully supervise, but allow the kids to let their inner caveman out with sticks to set alight and small pieces of wood to throw into the fire. Dance around, sing songs, make up jokes, tell ghost stories, eat marshmallows. Bliss.
33. Take the kids to work one day
Your children are fascinated by what you get up to all day, so show them. A day at the office is absolutely thrilling for kids of all ages (or even an hour if that’s all you can manage). Let them sit where you sit, do what you do and have lunch at your favourite spot. Give them a few small jobs to help out (this will depend on your occupation, but think counting change or stapling some photocopying, sorting the screws or serving a customer or two). This is one LOML will have to manage as I don’t know how exciting a day in my study at home will be for them… ha!
34. Invent a ball game
35. Play hide and seek
36. Create a family tree
For my mother’s birthday this year, my sister had an artist-friend draw an elaborate tree with many branches. Our whole family got together for Mum’s birthday party – cousins, nephews, uncles, sisters, brothers, babies, everyone – and each of us pressed our thumbs into ink and added ‘leaves’ to the tree, before signing our names underneath our fingerprint. Mum loved it and it’s such a nice memento that I’m hoping everyone will do similar for me one birthday soon. In the meantime, I’ll be making a smaller version for my nuclear-clan this year.
37. Go camping
Have you done it yet? I think there are two schools of family – those that have already been by their child’s first birthday and those who are still “thinking about it”. I definitely fall into the latter category and I think this is the year that I just have to brave the hard floor, the mosquitoes, the flies and the whole outdoor thing and just go for it. I can’t keep kidding the kids that a cabin at a caravan “resort” is exactly the same thing as real camping…
38. Go jogging
39. Walk to school every day for a week (or a year!)
40. Visit a farm
Do you have a farm nearby that you can join for the day? Even city folk are blessed with somewhere to be. Try Calmsley Hill or Golden Ridge in Sydney; Collingwood or Bundoora Park in Melbourne;Trevena Glen Farm near Brisbane; Cuddly Animal Farm near Perth; or the Hahndorf Farm Barn in the Adelaide Hills.
41. Have a drawing night
Everyone has to draw (including – especially – the resident Dad). You can draw each other or something that you love, but you have to take it seriously and you have to frame and display the drawings at the end of the night. Why are you doing this? You will be surprised at how peaceful and bonding doing this activity is. Drawing together opens up new conversations and forms of expression that are interesting and rather cathartic. Try it!
42. Take a weekend away to a capital city
It’s a little expensive, but achievable for most families at least once a year. The anonymity and relative scariness of a large city instantly brings a family closer together. That, plus there’s heaps and heaps of brilliant stuff to do. Visit the galleries, roam the riverbanks, explore the laneways, climb the towers, say hi to the zoo animals, buy a souvenir, potter around the markets, get a commemorative tattoo… or not…
43. Walk every street of your 10km square neighbourhood
44. Go on a breakfast picnic
Cook bacon and eggs on the barbecue, have an early morning swim and revel in the peace of your favourite spot before the crowds descend. A good time for this activity is after you do #10 (go fishing). Who knows, maybe you’ll be frying up some rainbow trout for breakfast?! (That sentence probably revealed just how little I know about fishing.)
45. Visit your local library often
46. Sponsor a child
47. Meet a new neighbour
Invite a family in your street that you’ve never met before over for a barbecue. Random? Very. Good idea? Possibly. Spontaneous and fun? Absolutely. You never know, you could meet your very best street buddies as a reward for your assertiveness and at the very least your kids will meet some more kids in the street.
48. Fly a kite
49. Make a ‘favourite family things to do’ notebook
List each activity your family enjoys doing on a separate page. Write detailed instructions, add pictures, provide helpful suggestions and list the dates you do each activity. Add mementos from places you go and things you do (scales of rainbow trout, pressed leaf from pea plants, seeds from ecogarden volunteering session). Marvel at brilliance of notebook. Send book to publisher. Wait.
50. Make a commitment
Decide on one thing (just one) that your family currently doesn’t do but would like to start doing in 2014. Or maybe you do something that you would like to stop. Commit to making it happen. Your thing might be on this list:
- Eat two pieces of fruit every day
- Bake once a week
- Keep pool free of leaves
- Only use school canteen once a month
- Put away clothes as soon as they are washed and folded
- Clear dinner dishes straight after dinner
- Go to bed at X time each night
- Sleep in on Sundays
- Set aside $10 each week for charity
- Keep list of grievances for airing weekly instead of expressing daily
I’ll be baking at least once a week.
51. Go to a professional sports game (even if you hate sports)
52. Hug long and often
What will you be doing in 2014?
♥
The holidays are fairly belting along already. Stay tuned for my ‘things to do at home’ series, starting on Monday.
This post was originally published on Village Voices. It’s been slightly modified for my blog.
Bec @ The Plumbette says
I LOOOVE this list. Such a great idea. This is definitely going to be referred to next year. x
Maxabella says
I think I’ll do a straight repub for 2015, Bec!! x