Much as we (as an elder couple) have been happy to spend time bouncing through PHL, CLT or wherever ... we have usually been heading much further west. I’m not sure that we would bother with a multi-sector down the East Coast, even for the TPs. Only exception might be a routing that ended with a Florida>Caribbean sector.
With family in tow, I think the concept is a bit gruelling. But I fully sympathise with the ultimate objective in this case. Time for a hard-ball Family Conference, perhaps? 😐