Quote:
Originally Posted by Amethyst
One on one time with each of your kids is never a bad idea. I would recommend doing something with each child, based on their interests.
There's never anything wrong with doing these events more, unless it ends up being only one kid gets the special time. But people have busy lives, so it's also understandable if you can only do it occasionally. The important thing is don't make promises you can't keep. A once a month outing that actually happens is better than weekly outings that often get cancelled.
You could also get her one of those wall calendars that people don't use anymore and put a picture on the day when they outing is planned, so that she has a visual reminder that it is happening and when it is. When you put her to bed, look at the calendar together and count how many days or "sleeps" until your outing.
|
i totally agree!!!
i've mentioned before on cp what my dad did when we were kids - we each got a "big day" with him. a 'big day" was one full day one-on-one with dad. this was a huuuuuge deal. my dad owned a paint and wallpaper store in brampton ontario - we lived in guelph - so about a 1 hour commute each way. his store was open 6 days/week and when it was open he was there. we might have seen my dad in the morning if we got up early enough and he usually didn't get home until after we went to bed. this was in the late 70's/early 80's and there was a brutal recession - so times were tight. if my dad was at his store he didn't have to pay another employee - so he worked a ton!
the result was we only really got to see him on sundays - which was great, but there just wasn't one-on-one time with him.
i don't remember which christmas it was, but there were cards for each of us kids from my dad inviting us each for a "big day" - a day when we got to spend the entire day with just dad and we got to pick what we did!
to this day i still remember those days with my dad (this is going back 40-45 years). over the years we went to blue jays games, the cne, the royal ontario museum, the planetarium, a leafs game, up the cn tower, did movie nights and the most amazing one of all - he got us tickets to game 2 of the cup final in '89.
all that stuff was so awesome to do - but what made it so memorable was that is was just me and my dad - just the two of us - no distractions, no interruptions - just us. that's what made those days so special.
they obviously had an impact on my siblings as well becuz 'big days' were brought up many times at my dad's funeral.
i wanted to start this same tradition with my kids so a few years ago i put cards in the christmas tree for them. my mom was over christmas morning and the kids saw the cards in the tree, got their cards and asked grandma to read their cards to them (kids would have been 6 & 4). my mom started to read the card and barely made it to the end. she teared up quite a bit - i think what hit her the most is how i wanted to carry on my dad's tradition and that meant so much. that was christmas of 2019 and unfortunately covid kind of threw a hard curve ball at going out and doing things - but we're hoping for them to really happen this year. my son wants to go to a young stars game in penticton and not sure yet what my daughter wants. we regularly do 'little' one-on-one things with our kids, but it's super fun to have an entire day and believe me - it will make a memory for life!