Tips to Gardening

How to amuse the children at family gatherings

It was a quite an eye opener the other day when I was asked to attend a rather large family gathering. All ages were there from babies to the grandparents.

The organiser of the party had enough common sense to have the foresight to realise that to help to make things run smoothly there had to be some sort of entertainment for the little ones. Things can get quite chaotic when there are a room packed full of kids with nothing to occupy them!

In one corner she had a table with art supplies for the kids. There were crayons, stickers, drawing pads and pots of paint. They were asked to come up with the best picture which would then be judged and a prize would be won.

A number of small board games such as draughts and ludo were at another table for the slightly older children and the more serious children seemed happy to get stuck into these. I noticed one of the older girls was quite happily entertaining a small group of children by reading them their favourite story.

Another rather novel idea was that someone had provided all the more capable ones with small disposable cameras. This kept them happy for a long time and it was also a great way for the quieter children to break the ice and interact with the adults. Mind you this was not necessary with the majority of them who were clicking away and having a great time.

When it comes to big family get togethers it is sometimes the case that you come away feeling somewhat jaded especially if you are the parent of a child full of energy, so what a great idea, this takes the pressure off everyone. It took just a bit of extra planning but was well worth it and the adults and children all had a brilliant time