The Culture Translator
Each week, our team researches culture to help you stay up to date on the music, movies, TV shows, and social media trends impacting your teen’s world.
Family Resources
Parenting Check-In
Discussion questions between parents
- What are the kids going through?
- How are we responding?
- What do we feel good about?
- What do we feel guilty about?
- How can we accept God’s grace for that guilt?
- How can we lean into his call for what we should do better?
Spouse Check-In
Discussion questions for your spouse
- Ask what they are thinking about for the future and to tell them what you’re thinking about.
- What friend do they wish they were closer to?
- What is broken that we need to fix in our patterns?
- What is a goal they are hoping for or working toward?
- Where do they feel our family is headed?
- What can we do about that?
- What are you hoping for?
- What are you dreaming of?
- If we miss the dreams of our spouse, or misunderstand them, we almost guarantee grudges and pain and fights.
Things To Do As A Family
Go have fun together
- Alpaca farms in Newcastle
- Amusement Parks: Six flags trips/Hurricane Harbor/Frontier City
- Arcadia Round Barn
- Backyard bonfire with S’mores
- Baseball Games in Bricktown
- Berry Picking at Agape House Berry Farm in Mustang or Buffalo Creek Farm
- Bike Riding: This seems simple. It is! But you normally hear about kids riding together not necessarily parents and kids riding together. We have been riding bikes since before they could ride bikes. We used to pull them in a bike trailer and do events like Full Moon bike ride at Myriad Gardens. As they got older we would bike around the local Univ or park just because we didn’t trust them on the road. We also turned the bike ride into more than just biking. We would create a scavenger hunt of sorts using a compass and a homemade drawn map. We would stop to get coffee, draw a picture together, read a book, grab a bite to eat and bike from location to location.
- Blanket Forts in the living room for movie nights w/ a floor “picnic”
- Blue Zoo
- Boathouse District: rafting/slides/zipline
- Bowling
- Brickopolis
- Bricktown Water Taxi
- Camping (including backyard camping): We started by borrowing a camper. We successfully started with 1 night and worked our way up. In later years we have transitioned into actual tent camping which still surprises me that we choose to sleep in a tent. The kids love it and it’s a great way to learn more about your kids.
- Cake Decorating: Cooking a dessert together, following the recipe. Have a cook-off between members of the family.
- Car Wash: Let them help wash the car at home 🧽 🚘
- Celebration Station/ Incredible Pizza / Heyday
- Civic Center Events
- Coffee Date: we go for coffee, buy the kids a snack and play a card game together or build a Lego.
- Cooking and baking together
- Craft Kit
- Czech Hall or other live music venues (Chicken shack, Jazz in June, Royal Bavaria)
- Dance Party in the living room
- Disc Golf: you can buy cheap disc for about $10 it’s a great place to let the kids run and learn to play. Sometimes we even bring our dog.
- Duck Pond
- Escape Rooms: While fun can get costly for the entire family and aren’t always an option. We have tried to make a few ourselves at home to save money when the kids were little. Also, spending a little money to buy one off Etsy and just print it out has saved us money and headaches.
- Fishing
- Float the River: Our girls have gone on the Arkansas (or Illinois) since they were 3 years old. I still surprise myself that we did this year after year.
- Friendship Bracelets
- Games: Board games/card games/puzzles. While we have tried to be a family that does puzzles together, we just are not. However, we are really good at playing board games together. Since the girls were little we would always have a rotation of games that were age appropriate. Sometimes when our littlest would go to sleep we would play a more advanced game with our oldest. Together as a couple we sometimes even break out a game.
- Gathering Place Tulsa
- Golf: Even when our kids were too little to play a round of golf we still brought them in the cart. Even just hitting range balls together one evening is fun. Sometimes we just put the golf net up in the backyard (saves some $). If you want to go all out there is always Top Golf, which is always a hit. We have even been known to make our own mini golf holes as a family challenge.
- Hiking
- Holidays Extras: pumpkin patches, Christmas lights, firework shows
- Hunting
- Ice Skating
- I-fly Indoor Skydiving
- Jenks Aquarium
- Karaoke together at home:. Just using YouTube. Having a silly time together.
- Kayaking / Fishing / Charter Boat: Just as anything, fishing can be as cheap or expensive as you make it. Fishing at a neighborhood pond or hiring a charter boat to take you around the lake and show you the spots.
- Lake days
- Laser Tag
- Library (Free)
- Martin Nature Park: in the city is a free public park but it full of gorgeous hiking trails. It is so fun to just pack a lunch and go explore. Bug collecting, bird watching.
- Mud Run 5K together
- Museums
- Sam Noble Museum
- Oklahoma History Center
- Edmond Historic Center
- Museum of Osteology
- Ok Railway Museum
- Myriad Gardens
- Nails / Pedicure
- Night Walk through your neighborhood w/ stargazing, listen to the nighttime animals.
- Outdoor Picnics at the park or in the backyard
- Orr Family Farm: we have even stayed overnight in the Glamping teepee they have.
- Paint Rocks: any painting and crafting
- Paint Pottery
- Painting Canvas: Something you can do on YouTube again for cheap. There are a lot of free videos that walk you step by step in a painting. Buy a few cheap canvases and paint and you have a family date night at home.
- Pancake Painting: you heard me! Pancake batter in different squeeze bottles with different color food dye.
- Pickleball at Chicken n Pickle is a blast, but if it’s going to be an ongoing family activity I highly recommend a set of rackets from Amazon and your closest neighborhood court.
- Pops in Arcadia
- Progressive Dinner: Appetizer, Dinner, dessert at 3 different places. It gives the picky eaters a chance to have a say.
- Public Library free events: Check out their calendar of events. Thanks to the library we have done yoga with Alpacas
- Painting Date Night with well known local painting company
- Holiday Themed Crafts
- Exotic Animals to pet
- Stem Night partnered with a local Univ to design projects as a family.
- Our local library also has free passes to local museums to can check out (Osteology Museum, Cowboy Hall of Fame, OKC Museum of Art, OKC Zoo).
- Putt-Putt Golf
- Reading a family book together out loud or Listening to an audio book in the car or a podcast.
- Restaurants
- Roller Skating
- Salt Plains: digging for crystals
- Sidewalk chalk in the driveway
- Splash pads
- Sports together
- Take the dog for a walk
- Theme food nights with a family movie.
- Thunder Game/sports/hockey/local sports at univ/baseball game downtown
- Trampoline parks
- Go pick anything: berries, flowers, fruit.
- Volunteering Together: Food bank of Ok or church events. I really so wish there were more organizations that would let a family w younger kids volunteer together.
- Wake Zone Cable Park
- Wheeler Park (Downtown OKC) has games outside to play as well as the Ferris wheel
- Wichita Mountains (hour drive) walking, exploring, buffalo’s, long horns, prairie dogs, lakes, passion play set, Meer’s Restaurant
- Will Rogers Rose Garden
- Yearly Passes: Buy a pass yearly for something. It changes from year to year. This year it might be Science Museum and we go a lot and get our fill of it. Next year it might be Six Flags.
- Zoo: While my kids are older we try to make it a little more interesting by bring art (painting or drawing animals while we are there). Last time we adopted a cricket that sat on our shoulder the entire time we were there. It’s the simple things. 😆 When they were little we would make homemade binoculars our of toilet paper rolls and bring along scavenger hunts. Anything to get a little more out of the experience.
Helpful Parent Podcasts
Parent Cue Live
Parent Cue Live is a weekly podcast featuring parenting experts designed to help parents do family better.
Fun Resources
1000 Hours Outside App
A way to be intentional about spending time outside, gives kids incentive to get outside to hit goals.
Mobile Phone Jail
Put your cell phone in jail at dinner, turn off the TV and look your children in the eyes and have conversations
Parent Cue App
Raising kids with faith and character doesn’t have to be difficult. Parent Cue gives you four simple ways to connect with the heart of your child each week.