5 Principles for the Perfect Family Night Activity

It's a monday night, and you have no idea what to do for family night….. You’ve watched a movie so many times, it seems like you are just going through the motions. You want to create the perfect family night activity, but it just seems so hard.

That’s ok. We’re here to help you think through how to do just that. We want to show you the 5 principles of a perfect family night activity.

Before we go on, check out our photo gallery to get an idea of who we are and what we do. If you like the photos, share them on social media.

Now, let’s talk activities.

Unique

One of the biggest parts of making the perfect family night activity is making something unique. You want it to stand out and be interesting. There’s nothing wrong with doing the same activity multiple times, however, your family needs unique experiences.

In this arena, be open to trying new things.

Which child would you rather have? A child who never tries anything new and stays inside their comfort zone their whole life, or a child gladly joins you on adventures and even do difficult things with you?

The answer is obvious. If you want your child to be adventurous and willing to try new things, then you have to model that behavior with them. In fact, it’s better that you model that behavior with them because, as a parent, you can show them where the lines are drawn.

You can show them where adventurous turns from a virtue into a vice. Being there is a good thing too, as we’ll discuss later in the article.

Just try and make the experience unique.

Simple

For children, complexity is the opposite of fun. Highly regimented environments aren’t that interesting. That’s why many children struggle with school. When you plan your activity, make sure it is very simple.

Often, you’ll only have 1 thing to do. That way, your family doesn’t have to worry about planning and can spend more time doing fun things.

This step is to help you avoid stressing out about crafting perfect experiences. It seems counter-intuitive, I know, but keep it simple. Keeping it simple makes the activity more sustainable (we’ll talk later about that too). In order to keep your sanity, keep your activities simple and meaningful.

Full Involvement

When you ask Google, “what do children want?” the first article responds simply by saying “their parents’ time.”

For the perfect family night activity, you parents need to be involved. Sometimes, it means you do things you wouldn’t normally do. For a lot of parents, playing Nerf Capture the Flag is a new experience.

That’s a good thing.

New often means unique, and we already discussed how that is a good thing. Sometimes the fact that you, the parent, are participating in a new activity with your child will make the activity unique. You can make each activity unique by the interaction you have with your children.

Just be involved in it.

Sustainable

Every kid would love to race life-size remote control cars. Every kid would love blow things up or explore the underwater city of Atlantis, or go to Disneyland and Six-Flags every other week.

The problem is that for most families, that is not sustainable.

Instead, find ways to play with your kids and have fun, new experiences that don’t require a private jet or access to a slightly overpriced theme park.

The nice thing about this tip, is that the preceding tips help to create a sustainable activity. If you are fully involved in a unique experience, your children won’t mind that it only cost the gas money to get there.

Keep your activities sustainable in order to keep doing them.

Exercise and Movement

More than anything, kids want fun and excitement. Most kids endure the lectures and lessons, looking forward to the exciting activities they get to do with their families.

Have you ever heard a kid saying, “Wow! I’m so glad we talked about the importance of doing chores for 30 minutes that one night during the summer!”

That’s outrageous. Instead you’d be more likely to hear, “Wow! Going to that trampoline park was so fun! And do you remember when we went to that water park and spent the whole day there? Or when we went camping up in the canyon? Man! This summer was the best!”

Give them a chance to move about and do fun things.

This article from KidsHealth says that “for kids, exercise means playing.” Kids don’t want to have a strictly regimented exercise program. Kids want to run, jump and play. Adults don’t play tag, kids do, and usually those kids are in much better shape than the adults. The KidsHealth articles goes on to explain that there are 3 basic elements a good exercise for children: endurance, strength, and flexibility.

Basically, you want your kids to have the ability to expend all their energy in a fun environment.

Perfect Family Night Activity

The days of watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles might be long gone for most kids, but every kid in their lifetime still wants to feel like a ninja at least once. That’s really only the first reason why The Ninja Playground is the perfect family night for the kids.

At the Ninja Playground your kids get a unique experience, a simple experience, an experience that you parents can get involved in, and they get to move and play. Let’s not forget that it’s relatively cheap too. The Ninja Playground is the perfect family night. We’d love for you to come down. We’re located in Lehi, Utah and we have multiple open-gym hours. Just come and visit us.