It can sometimes feel impossible to plan a family experience that all members are satisfied with. The teenagers want to experience excitement and adventure, your youngest would like something not too stimulating, and the adults are dealing with budget considerations while establishing lasting memories. Somehow, there are families that make plans every season and everyone comes home satisfied and is enthusiastically looking to the next adventure.
The secret of these magical experiences is not due to luck or money. These families have simply managed the complexities of family where different personalities, interests, and energy levels are involved. The more positive family experiences seem to occur when the planners deliberately think about what is truly motivating each family member overall instead of creating from a convenient template.
Understanding What Each Family Member is Actually Looking For
There is something different for each family member in terms of their expectations and excitement for any planned experience. Young children may primarily be looking for parental attention and something that is special or different than their normal routine. Teenagers typically want to have some level of independence while feeling equally included in the group dynamic, And often they are looking to create – or possibly recreate – experiences that they can share with their friends in the moments following their family experience.
Adults are generally focused on creating lasting memories in all the chaos of creating the experience, with more recently developed thoughts on safety, considerations for affordability for experiences, and each experiences’ overall logistics. Grandparents that join family experiences are often there to spend quality time together and be less of an observer, and often prefer experiences that are at a more relaxed pace with more opportunities for conversation and connection.
What many families get wrong is planning based on their excitement for the experience to come, and then expect the excitement to automatically transfer to the other family members. A parent who loves museums may plan a visit with a focus on the culture involved without recognizing that their thrill-seeking adolescent is likely to be staring at their phone the entire trip. Or similarly, a family that has organized all of its plans around the youngest child may figure out that all the older children experience might be boredom and they’re feel outside of everything.
Finding A Shared Experience Without Displacement
The best family experiences don’t necessarily mean everyone has to avoid their focus all together. The trick lies in finding a way to connect with one of other in a way that everyone has some layer of the experience to enjoy. This may mean particular interest when selecting sport more than once, or advanced planning of segments of time, where people focus their attention toward interests during different time periods during the holiday.
Organized trips that can combine layers of variations, or at least a variety of destinations of the trip often seem to work well because of a chance to vary activity into factors, styles, or duration of experience. Families become either more engaged in adventures together that involve multiple factors. For example, detailed Masai Mara Safari planning that focuses on particular geography, wildlife viewing, cultural experiences, and lodging all on the same trip increases exponentially the abilities to layer interests of multiple family members, being presented at the same time rather than organized separately.
Perhaps the key component of engaging multiple layers of participation, is not to imply that the experience of any one family member is more than another family member; rather, give them an experience of layered resolve of an experience through the community or connections of layered interests. For example, adults appreciation of a gorgeous place to be while engaging in the isolation of nature, excitement of an adolescent to face adventure, and adherence of the younger children to experience additional aspects of wildlife and cultural experiences through these experiences fulfilling only layers of demographics… how can engagement meet interest at the same time for adults?
Age Gaps and Energy Sets
One of the largest dilemmas when it comes to planning family experiences is accommodating different physical capabilities while also their differences in attention ultimately also come into play. An action that moves the active teenager might completely wear out the grandparent, but for it can also send the small children financially into overwhelms of attention while engage in an experience more than others could create. In the same way, activities devised for young children often leave older children with feelings of boredom or feelings of being too matured for the experience.
Families who are consistently successful in their family itinerary planners have learned to think in terms of flexible itineraries instead of rigid schedules. They build in options so that family members can participate at their own level of interest without hindrance to others, or without feeling left out. This might include identifying an activity where different family members could participate in different ways, or by planning some activities for the entire group and others for smaller sub-groups.
A number of families have had success with these types of experiences, including natural break points wherein family members with different levels of interest can choose to engage. For example, some family members will take the more arduous hike while others might prefer the scenic drive to the destination. The most important thing understand is that at the end of the day, everyone is going to the same place to share the experience.
Expectations and Communication
Family disasters often happen when one’s expectations don’t align with reality. Parents may expect a relaxed and bonding experience while children may expect to be entertained perpetually. Teenagers who may assume that the trip will involve some level of autonomy, while parents have planned a very rigid structure.
Families that are consistently able to plan good experiences, spend time upfront in conversations regarding what everyone’s hopes are going into the experience. Having conversations like these, families can better navigate the expectations, plus, families can quickly alter their fill in an itinerary based on what they are learning about everyone’s priorities. This communication helps deal with the disappointments that arise when weather does not cooperate, attractions are closed or activities do not meet expectations. Families who have talked about their expectations and apprehensions prior to departure can adapt when things do not go as planned.
Building in Recovery Time and Flexibility
Over scheduling kills more family experiences than nearly any other planning error. The desire to squeeze out every possible minute results in overpacked schedules and exhausted family members, and little to no time for the impromptu moments that families remember most fondly.
Family planning “veterans” build recovery time into their schedules, and avoid the temptation to fill every hour with organized and formal plans. They also realize that the best family connections sometimes occur when nobody is doing anything but being together. You may feel you do not have time simply to relax by a pool, walk leisurely down the street, take a nap, or have downtime to talk. Yet, within reason, there will be other times for exploring or engaging.
Flexibility is also really important when managing multiple families and/or age levels. If families are traveling with young children, there may need to be a more frequent take a break or bed time. If they have teenagers, they may want to sleep in and stay up later. The adults may need time to charge up their batteries between involved activities.
Creating Shared Investment in the Experience
Most memorable family experiences occur when all family members feel like they had a stake in creating them! This does not necessarily imply letting children plan the whole trip, yet there is a way for each family member to interject something of their own into the overall family experience.
Some families assign each person to research for one of the days that they will be on the trip or let each one person select one activity or meal that the family would experience together. Some families share who gets to make arrangements for meals, activities or timing. The specifics do not matter so much, as long as individuals feel their input has been valued and included.
This issue of shared ownership also helps when things do not happen perfectly. Family members who have been involved in the planning process, are more likely reasoning abilities and positivity, when confronted with something changing or going differently than planned. In fact, they become a part of the solution and not just another source of frustration.
The art of planning family experiences that truly work for everyone requires patience, creativity, and an authentic understanding of what motivates different family members. But families that work towards this balance create not just good trips, but also meaningful family memories and relationships that will extend well beyond a trip!