One of the sometimes embarrassing situations that families often face when taking their children on an outing, a trip, or to have lunch at a restaurant, park, amusement park, or to visit other families of relatives or acquaintances is the lack of discipline of these children, their behavioral disturbance, their repeated inappropriate requests, their screaming and loud voices, their hysterical and annoying running from one place to another, their anxious movement even when sitting next to the father or mother, their crying for the most trivial reasons or desires, and then leaving them to accompany adults away from sight, especially during shopping or visiting malls. This terrifies the family with the possibility of losing the children and the risks of returning home without them?!
All the above bad experiences and many others in fact lead the family to become frustrated and very hesitant about any desire or suggestion from the children to spend time outside the home… and gradually make them tend to withdraw into themselves and fill their free time with indoor activities at home such as: watching satellite TV, surfing the Internet, or reading stories and other sources of information… Even the negative reactions to the family’s tendencies and resistance to leaving the house are reflected, as is sometimes observed, in the resistance to others visiting them or the clear hesitation in accepting others’ visits… and turning the issue of leaving the house with the children into an emergency situation that mobilizes their awareness, emotions and concerns throughout the time they spend with them outside..
All of this often robs the family and the children of feelings of psychological comfort and enjoyment of the situations they live… and makes them lose awareness and focus to realize the many diverse learning experiences they go through during that, whether these are social behavioral or cultural-educational, emotional-emotional, cognitive-cognitive, moral or national-civilizational or other… So how can the family overcome On the above problems to enjoy the company of children outside the home. Taking into account the following:
Family guidance to enjoy the company of children outside the home
The family can overcome the problems of children while accompanying them outside the home and enjoy the time and experiences they live together, taking into account the following preventive and guiding educational principles:
Preparing to leave the house: The family with the children at this stage does the following:
1- Take food items for entertainment such as: nuts and various appropriate bags of “chips”, and light food, especially if the road or trip to the intended place is long, whether this place is a restaurant, a park, an amusement park, a summer resort, a beach, an archaeological or tourist site, or other ….
The family can also obtain new toys that the children have not used before. These materials and toys help, as expected, to wait for the children calmly until they arrive, or to serve food.. or to play with them for some time away from screaming and running from one place to another without a goal.
If the children suggest taking some of their toys or cassette players, it is preferable for the family not to object to that, to avoid the children’s anger and negative emotional reactions and in line with their desires for entertainment and spending a good time, but with the family’s emphasis on the children’s responsibility to carry it and maintain it until they return home.
2- Choosing the appropriate place where the family and children will spend their time outside the home. The type of restaurant, park, shopping center, amusement park, swimming pool, or other suitable locations. It is preferable for the family to first choose it by talking and exchanging opinions with the children, and then secondly informing them of what they expect in it and what is expected of them in terms of discipline and behavior while using it. It is also preferable for the family here, when they first leave the house with their children, to choose relatively informal places, i.e. places that do not require strict or numerous rules and regulations for the behavior of the people they visit, and are generally tolerant of children’s movements and sometimes nervous behaviors. Then they gradually move in their entertainment choices outside the home, reaching places that require behavioral etiquette or special rules for visiting them.
This logical and strategic gradation in reality, for choosing places for family enjoyment outside the home.. prepares the children psychologically and behaviorally to adapt to the requirements of new environments for visiting, using and enjoying the experiences they live.
3- Establishing appropriate etiquette and rules for eating meals at home, sitting appropriately, talking quietly without shouting and loud voices.. and moving in a balanced and purposeful manner from one place to another in the house, with the family emphasizing that the children do it and get used to it behaviorally on a daily basis.. as it helps them automatically and gradually, if they start this step late, to discipline the children and enjoy their company outside the home.
4- The family deals with situations in which children are taken outside the home to enjoy themselves together in a restaurant, park, trip, garden, amusement park, or other places they choose for the purpose, such as special occasions or incidents in family life and unusual or recurring activities in the daily family routine, which stimulates in them the feeling and conviction that regular behavior or behavioral discipline is not only expected of them in these situations, but is also required of them around the place outside the home.
Here, the family can take into account the following:
* Sitting in the appropriate place in the restaurant, park, train, or travel vehicle, and requesting appropriate meals from the employee or eating light foods during the trip on the bus or train car that the family brought or bought.
It should be noted here that the foods that the children eat or that the family requests for them are known and preferred by them. They are not new and they hesitate to eat them, or not preferred and they abstain from them by refusing, rioting, or crying sometimes.
* Providing children with appropriate entertainment items that the family has brought, such as healthy chips bags and some nuts or biscuits, to enable them to wait calmly until the main meal is brought. Or, if a meal is being eaten at a suitable restaurant, appetizers can be brought before the meal and the family members can eat them until the main meal is expected.
* Try to provide non-routine foods, drinks, appetizers and entertainment items such as nuts or others for children, i.e. different from what they are accustomed to in the family. This makes children feel that their outing with the family is in itself a special enjoyable event, worth waiting for and behavioral discipline during it.