Join the club

If you head online and search for “kids’ club,” you’ll end up with all kinds of hits for book clubs, environmental clubs, innovation clubs, digital photography clubs, and other clubs that sound fabulous, but suffer from one tiny flaw: for the most part, they seem to have been designed and organized by adults for kids.
If you do some digging, you’ll see what I mean: there aren’t that many kids’ clubs that feel like a program designed by and for kids. I’m not talking about a program that’s designed to pad that all-important resume of the future or to save the Planet. (Sure, that’s important, but so is making time for play when you’re a kid.)
Remember good old-fashioned 1970s fun, where the agenda was to show up at the playground or to go to someone else’s house and make your own fun? That’s the kind of fun we need to recreate with (not for) our kids.
March Break Week might be a good time to test drive the idea—to get together with a couple of families for an indoor or outdoor day of fun (depending on what the weather has in store); and to reap the benefits that come from pulling together as parents and a community. Have fun!

• Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting, including The Mother of All Pregnancy Books and The Mother of All Parenting Books. Visit her online at www.motherofallblogs.com.