I
am a father of three children, ages 7, 13 and 15. I am the only driver in the
house, so I am constantly on the go. I pick up and deliver kids to three
different schools each day. There are sports practices and games all year
round. Birthday party invites seem to come weekly, not to mention sleepovers and
slumber parties. All of this makes family time a bit difficult.
There
are times when I am forced to tell my teenagers, “No,” to doing something fun
with their friends, so that we may have a night of family time. My daughter,
who is now in high school, feels she misses out on a lot when I won’t allow her
to go to a football game so that we can spend quality family time together. The
thing is, she has no interest in the actual football game. I believe, in the
end, she really enjoys hanging out watching movies and eating popcorn with her
brothers.
My
seven-year-old comes home with many birthday party invites. These are usually
on the weekends when we have the chance to spend time together as a family. I
can easily convince him to skip a party, as long as I come up with something
fun to do as a family. There have been times where I have “accidentally”
forgotten about the party. I usually don’t hear from him about it until after
his first day back to school with his friends.
I
just recently got to thinking about the last time we, as a family, took a
vacation outside of the state of Missouri. I realized it had been six years. My
youngest was one-year-old when we went to Disney World in Orlando. Yes, we take
small trips to KC, St Louis, Branson, Jeff City, Columbia and Lake of the
Ozarks, but they need to experience more.
I
made the decision to plan and book a weeklong trip this December. The kids will
have to miss four days of school, but I feel like it’s worth it. I will
surprise them with this pre-Christmas trip, right before we are set to
leave.
While
there will always be the “fear of missing out” for our children, we as parents
can turn those moments into “joys of missing out.”
Herb Cody is a husband and father of three. He is a
part time Uber driver and full time caregiver of his spouse, who suffered a
traumatic brain injury after an auto accident November, 2015. Herb loves
football and is a St Louis Cardinals fanatic. He and his family live in Nixa
MO. Herb can be reached for questions or comments at herbie05@yahoo.com
You
can check out Herb's own blog at www.thecodylife.weebly.com
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