Planning a Family Picnic

Planning a family picnic can take a bit of work, but it's well worth the effort. With usually way different tastes in food, activities that each person enjoys, and different ideas of what relaxation is, not to mention differences in ages and energies, the whole process can be a bit difficult. After all, picnicking is supposed to be a relaxing activity, not a hassle that ends up causing more problems and stress. Nonetheless, this is no reason to not simply go in the first place. By communicating with your family and proposing a few central choices for your kids and yourself, you'll set yourself for an enjoyable and afternoon together.

In the first place, picnicking doesn't have to be a once a year activity like a vacation. With this in mind, you can diffuse a lot of arguments and difficulties in trying to decide on food, activities, and location. Give each of your children the chance to pick out a particular aspect of the picnic. For example, one week let one of your children pick the food, another the location or the games. Not only is this usually a good diplomatic decision, it is also a great way to discover what interests your children and to take part in the things they like. Depending on the ages of your children this can work out very well. As they get older, they're usually a bit more compromising and self-sufficient so they can entertain themselves without you having to intercede. Nonetheless, it's still good to plan together.

Choose foods and activities that everyone can participate in. As adults, you'll probably want to enjoy a lot of foods like stinky cheeses, dark greens, and wine, which your children will just not like. It's a much better bonding experience if everyone is partaking in the same pleasures, so even though you may have access to fun things for yourself, try to do everything together.

Likewise for activities, don't choose a game that as an adult you can easily physically dominate your children with. For example, tennis. Lawn darts and other less physically demanding games are probably a better choice instead of games that really build a sweat up.

Be compromising yourself. While your ideal picnic may be just doing nothing, consider have both relaxing time and play time as your kids will probably not enjoy doing nothing quite as much. If you make this balance ahead of time, it won't be difficult to get some time to yourself as well as with your family.