helping kids deal with stress during the recession

The recession takes it's toll on children just as much as it does on the parents, except with kids they do not have a very good understanding of why they can not continue to do the same things as before. My wife and I would never cook on Friday's we always ordered out or went out to eat every Friday. These past few months we have had to curb that now if we are lucky we can take the kids out or order in once a month.
To help our kids deal with that we have instituted movie night. We now rent a movie and make dinner together as a family every Friday and the kids seem to enjoy that a lot more then they did the dinners out or the Pizza being delivered. I have also found that I too enjoy it a lot more, there are many children's films that I have never seen and have enjoyed with the wife and kids. This is only one of the things that we are going to have to do in order to ride out this recession, with summer coming all the trips to the beaches and amusement parks will have to be trimmed if not cut out all together. So my wife and I have talked of ways to do more at the house and local parks with the kids. We are also lucky to have a very large back yard and as luck would have it two weeks ago we found a swing set in the want ad's for a very good price and decided to invest in it. The thought was playing at home is not only safer but cheaper, If there was any good that would come from this recession it is that sometimes us as parents lose site of the little things. My wife and I have always done things with the kids we do not even pay for day care we would rather work different schedules so one of us is always home with them, but being home with them and taking them to Disney Land is not the same as going in the back yard and pushing them in the swings or playing tag with them.

It is very easy to become over loaded and stressed out in these hard times and we understand why, imagine how the kids feel it is very important to explain it to the ones who are old enough to understand what is going on. As for the ones whom are too young to understand, sometimes a good tickle can cure a bad day. Even for us parents a good tickle can help cure the stress of a long day, try it if you don't believe me, go ahead I dare you!
I feel it is just as important for the parents to get away from the stress of the recession of course we can not do it for as long as the kids, but to spend a whole day in the back yard running around with them, laughing with and at them is the cheapest for of therapy, Lets face it not one parent who has kids and is suffering from this hard economic time has not thought about therapy in some way shape or form. So this kills two birds with one stone as they say. Spending time with the kids and relieving the stress of the long hard day, giving you both the strength to go another day.