Having children with a varied age gap often makes some outings more suitable to the younglings and other outings more suited to the older children.
Our family dynamic also doesn’t lend itself to having much in common with other families. I doubt you will find many families where mum & dad are both 30 and their 6 children range in age from 9 down to 1. I don’t know any, Mumma bare knows of 2 but they are in the states.
Some outings do appeal to the whole gang; we recently had a trip to the Museum where I can safely say every member had a ball. There were activities and displays of interest that catered for all ages, Miss P was a little freaked by the spider displays (so was I) but thoroughly enjoyed the activities in the childrens musem.
Finding a dynamic that works is a rarity, we came pretty close to the mark last weekend; we caught up with some school friends of ours and their families. Between the two families we had an even spread of children the same or close to the same age as all of our children, what’s great about this is there is no exclusion play.
Exclusion play is one of the things we have tried to condone over the years, its something that is usually dependent on the circumstances more so than the child’s personality and usually ties in with odd numbers for some reason. Our eldest children in particular know not to exclude their siblings, when you are meeting up with other children of the same ages in equal numbers this is not normally an issue.
Where am I going with this? Nowhere really, just making a point that its another bit of extra effort that needs to be put into planning family outings with a large family. In the meantime if you know any 30 year olds with 6 children under 10 who believe attachment/gentle parenting by all means give them my email.
And I guess while I’m making my wish list: a dad who is also into motorcycles and hates football and cricket would be nice also.
I joke, I kid until next time………….
Our family dynamic also doesn’t lend itself to having much in common with other families. I doubt you will find many families where mum & dad are both 30 and their 6 children range in age from 9 down to 1. I don’t know any, Mumma bare knows of 2 but they are in the states.
Some outings do appeal to the whole gang; we recently had a trip to the Museum where I can safely say every member had a ball. There were activities and displays of interest that catered for all ages, Miss P was a little freaked by the spider displays (so was I) but thoroughly enjoyed the activities in the childrens musem.
Finding a dynamic that works is a rarity, we came pretty close to the mark last weekend; we caught up with some school friends of ours and their families. Between the two families we had an even spread of children the same or close to the same age as all of our children, what’s great about this is there is no exclusion play.
Exclusion play is one of the things we have tried to condone over the years, its something that is usually dependent on the circumstances more so than the child’s personality and usually ties in with odd numbers for some reason. Our eldest children in particular know not to exclude their siblings, when you are meeting up with other children of the same ages in equal numbers this is not normally an issue.
Where am I going with this? Nowhere really, just making a point that its another bit of extra effort that needs to be put into planning family outings with a large family. In the meantime if you know any 30 year olds with 6 children under 10 who believe attachment/gentle parenting by all means give them my email.
And I guess while I’m making my wish list: a dad who is also into motorcycles and hates football and cricket would be nice also.
I joke, I kid until next time………….
well we're both 39, and at the moment we've got 4 small ones from 8 - 1, (17 year old lives with my mum), and in August we're having twins, so that will make it 6 younglings from ages 9 - on thier way to 1. We seem to have followed the same pattern as you two, only we didn't meet till we were 28.....so we got together later and spent the same 10 year period popping out babies!! We reckon when we hit 40 we'll enter the next phase of our lives though, that wont be so much about nappies and toddling... We're both into attachment/gentle parenting, and unschooling or natural learning, and my fella is definitely into motorcycles and hates football and cricket too:)
ReplyDelete