Instead of purchasing toys that they will forget about, consider booking a family vacation instead!
Can traveling be just as rewarding for children?
Of course, and now only in terms of entertainment, but also about quality time spent together and the real life exploration which will not happens in the classroom or playing with toys. By redirecting our purchases into experiences, we are building the blocks for a happier life.
Plus, holidays make your child smarter. This may sound too good to be true. But Dr. Margot Sunderland argues that holidays advance brain development in children and help them build concentration skills.
What are the highlights of choosing the vacation instead of stuff?
1. Gathering the whole family
Take the grandparents with you too!
The kids, usually comment about the location or the fact that they will bored, but when they will hear the grandparents are coming too they will be delighted.
Laptops and screen time combined with hectic schedules leaves little time for quality family time. It’s easy to get caught up in the everyday hustle and bustle. The shared experiences will help strengthen bonds.
It can be a grounding point to reconnect while back at home.
Multi generational vacations are a great way to connect and the various activities will be so much fun.
2. Encourage curiosity and exploration
When you take a vacation, you will experience new things.
Whether you and your family take a vacation out of state, or around the corner, there is no doubt you all will learn different things.
For example, you may have a bus tour in your own city.
This tour can educate you on the history of the neighborhood along with other interesting information.
There are tour buses in the boroughs of New York City and many local residents take the tour as if they were first time visitors.
3. Develops the cultural level
Every city you visit has history, art, local customs and things new to be discovered. Either you go to Rome, Paris or New York, the cultural level of the kids will be much wider than before.
When you visit a new city, make some parallels with the things child already knows from home to raise his interest for the place and also to make the new information more accessible.
4. Discovering new places opens perspective
Yes, the “new” develops the intellect.
The wider the perspective, the smarter we become. Making various and heterogeneous association show a very rich intellect and the ways we can raise it is through reading/ studying and real life experiences that assume exploration and discoveries.
Show them the world!
There are so many amazing things to see and do in this great world we live in, why would you not want to show it to them?
5. Relief stress
When you are loaded with multiple pressures at work, your body reacts with the survival response of fight or flight. Sustained challenges lead to constant stress, which does not go away even when you go home.
Being stressed prevents you from thinking straight and impedes your analysis and actions at work.
When you take a vacation, you immediately reduce the stress in your life and give yourself the space and time to get back to work with a clear mind. You all need a vacation!
6. Learning and creativity
Science says that the human mind maximizes learning in resting hours. Hence all education is structured with adequate breaks. The way your brain functions is that you absorb and record information through your working day. Then, to use that information effectively your brain needs time off to process it, make meaningful connections with other learning that you have and throw up creative ideas from these connections.
7. Open their eyes & minds
Kids need to know that people live differently across the world. Traveling opens their eyes up to see that people live differently then they do and allows them to have appreciation for the environment they live in. The amount of education one learns from immersing themselves in a different culture surpasses any traditional school learning.
8. Traveling is fun
And if for no other reason to take your kids on vacation, travel because it is fun. As parents, we work hard to provide for our families. You deserve taking time away from your job and this stresses of day-to-day life. You deserve to have fun with your children. You deserve the time to make memories for your family.