Family traditions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our main tradition is visiting urgent care while on vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During COVID we instituted "Whatever Wednesdays" which means that once everything you need to do for the day (school, homework, chores, etc.) you can eat whatever you want for dinner (within reason, it can't inconvenience someone else) and do whatever you want until bedtime. My husband and I both work from home and our twins were in K in March 2020 when school shut down. That led to a ton of together time (which was great in many ways, I'm not complaining about our situation at all), but after spending 24 hours a day under the same roof and eating three meals a day together, we decided that we needed something to break up the monotony. So on Wednesdays everyone could do whatever they wanted to do and eat whatever they wanted to eat. It was a nice mid-week reset that everyone looked forward to because no one had to plan or cook or schedule their time, they could just do what they wanted when they wanted it.

Now that they're back in school full-time, my husband and I are still working from home so we have family breakfasts together every morning and dinners together most nights unless there are doing their sport, in which case the parent taking them (we switch off) will eat dinner with them while the other often works later. We are fortunate enough not to work weekends, and because we have twins who do the same sport at the same time, the four of us can all go to competitions together. We are also lucky enough to have help around the house, so we have a ton of together time on weekends when we eat, play, and hang out together. As a result, on Wednesdays the kids can have their iPads (which are otherwise password protected and allowed only at certain times) or watch TV as much as they want after school once everything is done until bed and they can have whatever they want for dinner and eat it wherever they want (i.e. cereal in front of the TV).

So Whatever Wednesdays are our family tradition.

Do they still go outside and play or just Ipads? In general kids don't even know how to ride bikes anymore, I saw a post saying just 70% of 10 year old know how to ride a bike now, compare to 90% just 10 years ago. I think kids oughta stay kids As long as they can Turn off the screen, go climb a tree get dirt on their hand.

They often end up going for a bike ride, playing with friends, wanting to do family games (which we do a lot of anyway), etc. and then they will do their iPads later. My kids spend plenty of time outside and doing physical activity. Wednesdays at a day they can just do whatever they want, so even if they did spend the evening on their iPads that day I'm not concerned. They know how to climb a tree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whatever Wednesdays is awesome - great idea.

Agree!

We do
Weekly:
Taco Tuesdays
Friday night pizza and movies
Sunday board games night

Occasional:
Birthday breakfast stack of pancakes with a candle and whipped cream
First day of summer vacation beach outing
First weekend of summer camping (some years it's had to be tents in the backyard if we couldn't go somewhere)

Holiday:
Epic Easter egg hunt
Advent activity calendar, same every year, with a thing to do each day like write cards, make cookies, write to Santa, decorate tree, along with a religious one that tells the Christmas story

The dads take the kids to do this every year and it's amazing!

Can you tell me more about your epic Easter egg hunt? Our kids are older now and they still want to do it but it can't just be toddling around for easy-to-find eggs anymore so any ideas you have would be appreciated!