Family Movie Night

Screen Time Fun for Everyone

• What: Family movie night
• When: Two years and up
• Why: Enjoy family films together
• Where: Your home

Several years back, we instituted a new family tradition of watching movies together. We set aside Saturday nights, and ate dinner early so we had time to see an entire movie and not get into bed much later than a normal bedtime. This night also coincided with our big weekly clean up, requiring the removal of all creations (and a return of my floor space for things like walking around the house).

Since we have three kids, we use a voting system to choose the movie. Each person gets one vote, and we pull the winner out of a hat. It never fails to end in tears for at least one child, but that was also true before we started using the voting system to select the movie. Now my kids vie to get me to vote with them and increase their odds. They can also vote for the same movie from week to week, and on the odd occasion all three kids vote for the same movie, we watch it without pulling from a hat.

This method helps us introduce new movies they haven’t seen, like March of the Penguins, into their usual repertoire of Open Seasons 1, 2, and 3 and Star Wars. More importantly, it means we all get to sit down together once a week and enjoy a film. Sometimes we go all out and pull out the sofa bed and pile on. We also occasionally invite friends to join us, which makes a great way for the adults to catch up on conversation while the kids enjoy a flick. Either way, with family or friends, we all look forward to Saturday nights.