Someone once told me that some teens get to a point where, in order for them to enjoy a family vacation, they need to take a friend along. While I think my teen would definitely complain less and might even pack her suitcase on time if she had a friend beside her, I’m not ready to “go there” yet, since I think our younger daughter would feel left out (not to mention she’d pester the teens a bunch), and I know my husband wouldn’t want to walk around in his pajamas in front of the friend if we all shared a hotel …
Category: Travel With Kids
Little Ones Need To Travel, Too
My friends who are professional travel advisors have been telling me for months that “it’s too cheap not to travel this summer”. Some thoughts about vacations, for people who are talking themselves out of traveling because they think their kids are too young– or for people who know families like that:
Six summers ago, we took our kids on a Southern California adventure trip when one was 8 and the other was 4. We’d saved up airline miles so that all four of us flew free, so we splurged and went to the Hotel Del Coronado, Legoland, the San Diego Zoo, and …
Flying Chickens, Buried Cadillacs, and Martin Luther King
Recently in my teen’s Pre-AP Language Arts class (i.e. Honors English), when the teacher was leading a discussion about the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy, my daughter was aghast that she was the only one in class that knew that the location of Kennedy’s assassination was right here in Dallas, and one of the few who knew that Martin Luther King, Jr. was deceased. “He’s dead??!!” asked the girl considered by many to be the smartest in the class (the one who never has to study and gets all A’s). I said she …
Musings on DVD Players in Cars
Following is a column of mine that
was published in the Dallas Morning News on July 11, 2001. Replace the
word “VCR” with “DVD Player” and it’s still relevant. Only now, things
have gotten worse. People are popping in DVDs just to drive their kid
to the grocery store. Completely limits any family conversation that
could take place during that journey. And once your kids turn age 5,
the percentage of time they spend away from you (in school and other
activities ) is forever greater than the time they spend with you–
and, concurrently, a lot of the time you manage to have with them …