How to Host a Grandparents’ Night & Quick Tips for a Stronger, Happier Family [Friday’s Fast Five: 9th Edition]

Building a stronger, happier family is at the top of most parents’ list. However, we are busy! These weekly Fast Five ideas and tips are a quick way to brainstorm, check-in, and create the family relationships you really want. Today’s ideas include how to host a Grandparents’ Night to help our kids know their grandparents and appreciate them, a service idea for foster kids, a quick tip about preparation, and more. Happy Friday!

* These ideas are NOT meant to be a checklist or guilt trip of things we “should do.” Rather, they are intended to inspire you to find what works for YOUR family to learn, laugh, and love together. Remember to stick to the Simple Side of Parenting.

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What is Friday’s Fast Five?

Each Friday, we share five quick and simple ideas for families under the following categories:

1. Something Fun

This is an activity, game, entertainment recommendation, or simple outing for family fun.

2. A Little Lesson

Here you will find a simple lesson to help teach kids important ideas. Examples include life skills or personal qualities like kindness and patience.

3. A Service Idea

Volunteering is good for our mental and physical health. Serving together strengthens relationships with those we serve and those we serve with. Service can be fun and eye-opening. Service is an important way to learn, laugh, and love together.

4. Something Random

This is a random thought, idea, quote, or meme, typically to help you smile. 🙂

5. A Quick Tip

Here you will find a quick parenting or family tip for peaceful parenting or building a stronger, happier family. These come from research, personal experience, or those common sense reminders we all need to hear once in a while.

Subscribers also receive exclusive tips and downloads to simplify parenting life.

Yes, Please!

With that, here is the ninth edition of Friday’s Fast Five. (You can find other editions HERE.)

1. Something Fun: How to Host a Grandparents’ Night

Building a strong relationship between our children and their grandparents can increase the love they each feel in their lives. Grandparents are also a wonderful source of wisdom and support for our kids. One way to strengthen that relationship is to host a Grandparents’ Night.

Prepare for a Grandparents’ Night with a Grandparents Interview

A Grandparents’ Night is an evening focused on grandparents! We’ll eat some of their favorite foods, listen to their favorite music, and learn about them. So, the first thing in preparing for the evening is to gather the information.

One great way to prepare is to have children interview their grandparents. If grandparents have already passed away or are not personally known, you can gather general information about the era and area in which they grew up or talk to another relative that might know about them.

Choose Activities for Your Grandparents’ Night

Go through the information you have gathered, and decide which pieces you want to include for this evening. Determine if you want to focus on all of the grandparents in one night or one grandparent at a time.

Plan which favorite foods you can eat, favorite songs you can listen to, and how to learn about world events of that era. Choose which favorite fun games you could play or movie you could watch.

Make Your Grandparents’ Night Happen

Lastly, make the big night happen! This is a fun evening whether or not grandparents are close enough to attend. Put the event on the calendar, and enjoy a fun evening getting to know and appreciate grandparents better.

Especially if grandparents live far away, one last fun addition to the night is to make a card for them. Let kids share what they learned or enjoyed from their grandparents’ favorite things and express love and appreciation.

2. A Little Lesson: Family Movie Making

Choose a principle you want the family to learn more about like patience, kindness, or gratitude. Make a movie together that teaches this concept. Have kids take the lead role in planning.

My brother and sister-in-law hosted a movie-making activity like this at our family reunion, and everyone loved it! The kids were creative and had a great time acting out the parts. Plus, each video sent a meaningful message.

Our videos centered around a well-known story that taught the principle. This is a helpful suggestion if kids feel stuck with how to create a plot or story.

Wondering how to fit Little Lessons into your busy family schedule?

The two main ways to fit important lessons into your busy family schedule are to find spontaneous teaching moments throughout the day and to schedule family learning time each week. These two posts go into detail about these two ways and tips for making it happen with your family.

How Busy Parents Can Teach Important Life Lessons

6 Tips for Family Time that Teaches Life’s Most Important Lessons

3. A Service Idea: Socktober for Foster Kids

Together We Rise is a wonderful organization that helps children in foster care. This October, they have 45,000 donated socks and are asking for help in covering shipping costs…Socktober!

Each dollar donated is a pair of socks delivered to a child in foster care. As families, we can earn or save a few dollars to help these kids who are growing up in tough life circumstances.

Visit Together We Rise for details about Socktober and other volunteer opportunities to serve kids in foster care.

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Service is a great way to build a stronger, happier family. If you want more service ideas, request Raising Compassionate Children in a Conceited World, which includes 101 Service Ideas for Families.

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4. Something Random: Happy Fall!

And kudos to all the parents relearning math right now so they can help their kids! You’ve got this!

5. A Quick Tip: Prepare

Recent events have helped us all see the wisdom of preparing our families for emergencies. But preparation is also important for creating the family relationships and life experiences we desire.

This proverbial wisdom nails it.

Let’s take a moment to think about what in our life needs preparing or planning, and then set aside some time to do that necessary preparation.

One of the things that might be on that preparation list is the holiday season. If we want to have a calm, connected holiday season, we should prepare for it.

I’m hosting a free six-week challenge to help us with that preparation: Channeling Low-Stress Holidays Challenge.

During this challenge, we’ll dig into perfectionism, plan the nuts and bolts of the season, learn tools for how to manage stress, and more. In bite-size steps, we’ll get all set-up for a peaceful holiday season.

Related: 7 Tips to Avoid Holiday Stress: How to Prepare for a Peaceful Season

And that is Friday’s Fast Five!

Yes, Please!

You can also see Friday’s Fast Five on Instagram or other editions HERE.

Building a Stronger, Happier Family

It takes time and intention to build a stronger, happier family. I hope Friday’s Fast Five helps you find the ways that work for YOUR family to learn, laugh, and love together.

We will never regret the time we devote to our families and relationships with our kids.

Have a great weekend with your family, know that you’re loved, and keep on lovin’!

Do you have a great idea for a future Friday’s Fast Five? Have a question or parenting struggle you want help with? Share in the comments, shoot me an Email, or schedule a call.

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