If your family is used to getting regular vacations and holidays, being restricted at home could be psychologically exhausting for the parents and kids. Family adventures hold so many benefits that create lifelong memories. It promotes self-confidence for both the parents and children.
The more the family travels together, a sense of adventure, curiosity, and more ideas grow. Traveling improves the mental and psychological well-being of the whole family. It helps the family to engage in memorable activities and bonding moments that the children will remember for the rest of their lives.
However, going on family holidays abroad is not the only way to explore places or create great bonding moments with the children. Here are four meaningful activities that can be substituted to family travel, and make most out of your family time at home:
Discover the beauty of planet Earth together.
Children love stories about the planet earth, wonders of nature, and different types of animals. During the lockdown period, discovering and learning about the beauty and wonders of the planet we live in is an awesome adventure for the whole family. With online technology and apps, you can access all sorts of documentaries and programs. Enjoy watching 3D films about the planet and let the kids appreciate the beauty of our world.
Read books about different countries and cultures.
While computers and ipads are now common devices for small children, turning the pages of colorful books that you can touch, feel and read together is also a heart-warming bonding experience for parents and children. Reading books together about different countries and culture is an enriching activity. Work on your storytelling skills and stimulate the family’s imagination about the mysteries of many places.
You can also do some sort of games or quiz bee to make it more fun and challenging for the kids. How about playing charades about countries?
Make a family travel chronicle or photo albums.
Aside from posting in social media, very few people bother to really spend time in organizing the memoirs of the previous travels. Now is a great time to do it. It’s also a fun way of going back to those days and you will be surprised how the children have grown! Make a timeline of those travels, document the occasion, place and year. Remember those bloopers and funny moments!
Create a digital scrapbook or a physical album of printed photos where you can put nice captions. Let the children participate in the creative activity. Make your scrapbook colorful. Trust me, your family photo album and scrapbooks will be priceless family treasures in the future!
Update the family bucketlist and talk about your future travel plans.
Yes, we all know for a fact that coronavirus has impacted world travel tremendously and easing travel restrictions could take a while. But thinking about the places to go by the time you will be able to travel once again will help in keeping a positive mindset and psychological well-being of the entire family. It is also good to educate the children about how different traveling would be after the pandemic. The new safety measures and policies about social distancing may result in more stringent rules in travel and tourism. Explaining these things to children in a positive way would result in more understanding, and it will teach them to be responsible travelers in the future.
Until COVID-19 is over, our only choice is to keep social distancing and stay home. But there are plenty of choices left to us on how we can make activities at home that will take us to memorable experiences of traveling and still enjoy. What matters most is the joy of family togetherness in addition to staying healthy and having a robust state of mind.
