Hello everyone! I was supposed to post last week, but again, I am late! :( Oh well. I think we are all enjoying this blog, even if some of us are slackers. :)
My post today is about some ideas on how to create individualized time with your kids. Growing up, this was something my parents were very good at. From a young age, I remember my dad taking each kid on date night once a month (so one night a week, dad was gone on date night). Some of you may already do this, but I just want to say how important it is for our kids to spend quality time with their dads, most of whom they don't see enough of! Doing daddy date night once a week is quite the sacrifice on the mother's part too, especially if dad is involved in church activities on another night.
Other ideas on how to have more individualized time with your kids:
1) When the older children (or child) are at school, take some time to actually play with your baby or toddler. Although it is tempting to "get as much done" while there are less children around, it is still important that your youngest see you playing on the floor with them (just like you did when you had your first and only child).
2) Find something in the community that you and your child can participate in:
story time at the library, music class, mommy & me swimming classes, dance class, tumbling class. One time I put McKay in a tumbling class, and I actually got a baby-sitter for Nelson just so that McKay and I could have some alone time together. Everyone may not be able to pay for a baby-sitter, but it was only 1 hour a week that we went together. Now, one day a week while McKay goes to pre-school, Nelson and I attend a free music/singing time group at the local library. It is a group of moms who got together and decided that our kids need more singing and music. We each take a turn teaching, which means we only teach once every few months. We usually don't do church songs. More holiday/seasonal and nursery rhyme songs. It is super fun!
3) When kids are doing their daily jobs around your house, choose one at a time to help:
If the younger one usually needs help, give them a job that they can easily do on their own. Then spend the time helping or cheering on an older child. (Or vice versa)
I think some moms think they are being a great mom if they have all of their kids with them all of the time (I am sure they are great moms), but it is also important to remember that sometimes kids need individual attention. In some families, maybe there is one especially needy child and that child always seems to get the most attention. Or sometimes the youngest child gets the most attention and then the other kids start to feel left out (and will start acting out to receive attention).
What other ideas do you have to spend more alone time with each child?
I wrote an excellent comment and the internet ate it. Let's see if I can remember. . .
ReplyDeleteSo a couple years back I made this my new year's resolution. I wanted to--at least once a day per child--stop what I was doing and respond immediately to a child's request. It could be something really simple like helping them draw something, spell something for them, fix a problem on a toy, etc. Or it could be longer (though none of the requests are usually too hard) like reading a book, showing them how to do something on their own instead of doing it for them, etc.
I was amazed at how the atmosphere changed in our child-parent relationship. Everyone was happier--including myself. I never felt like I missed out on the "really important" cleaning, or computer work, or me-time I'd been trying to do so efficiently before.
Sometimes parenting is really hard for me because I am very much a start-at-the-beginning-and-go-to-the-end kind of person. Motherhood makes me feel like I have ADHD because I never complete things in one sitting and I often forget what I was trying to do because I get interrupted constantly. But I try to remember a quote I heard years ago that explained that a family should be more of a school than a business--a place of learning more than a place of efficiency.
Someone remind me of this tomorrow when I feel like I'm going crazy again.