Family Movie Night

Kids sitting on sofa watching movie

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Screen Time Fun for Everyone

Kids sitting on sofa watching movie
  • 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).

Three kids sitting on sofa in the dark with bowl of popcorn watching movie
All three of our kids love family movie night, especially with popcorn.

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.

Cat watching nature show on TV
Even the cat loves family movie night.

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.

Family of mom and three kids sitting on sofa watching a movie
Family movie night has become one of our favorite routines.

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