Valentine’s Day is upon us! I don’t know about you, but I often think about how to make Valentine’s Day special around my house. However, making kids feel special once a year just isn’t good enough. We need to make an effort to show our children how much we care the rest of the year.
Show Kids You Care Every Day
1. Baking – My youngest children adore making cookies with me. It doesn’t matter what we’re making, they love to stir, measure, and mix. Nothing says I love you like allowing a small child to pour the chocolate chips into the batter.
It’s harder with older kids. Now that they’re busy making their own cookies, brownies, and cakes, they don’t need parents to measure and pour. It’s time to pull out those difficult recipes to attempt to cook together. Create truffles for the teen party, whip up a couple of pizzas for the Friday night movie, or bake a fancy cake.
The time spent together says I love you more than a dozen boxes of chocolate.
2. Errands – Running errands together may sound like a chore, but it’s actually a wonderful time to get to know your child. For some reason driving around town together in the car encourages long discussions.
You can chat about your favorite movies, the book you’re reading, or the news. Talk about sports, work, and tell funny stories from your childhood. When your child begins to chatter back, stop talking and listen closely.
Many heart-to-heart conversations begin by simply running errands together.
3. Learning their Favorite Game – My kids play a lot of games that I’ve never played before in my life. As the mom of the house, I’m busy cooking dinner, cleaning, or running errands. It’s hard to find the time sit down to play games for hours. That time is the luxury of childhood.
However making the time to learn my kids’ favorite games shows them how much I care, even if it’s not Valentine’s Day. My kids get the opportunity to teach me the ropes and explain the rules, while I’m the student.
Playing my kids favorite games with them is a fun way to show them how much I care.
4. Reading their current book – Another fabulous way to show my children how much I care is to read their current books. I don’t read one of the homeschool books I’ve assigned, instead I grab the books my kids are reading during free time.
Later I start a lively discussion about the book emphasizing the points I like. We’ll chat about character motivation, what we think should have happened, and if there are more books in the series. Dinners turn into a long discussion about their favorite stories.
Books connect families together.
While Valentine’s Day makes a great time to show kids you care, it’s not the only time. Make an effort to turn daily chores into fun activities which bind you closer together as a family.
What’s your favorite way to show kids you care?
images courtesy of pixabay
Baking and reading to them – yup. You just named two of my kids’ favorites.
Such good ideas! It’s easy as a homeschooling Mom, to just thing you are doing enough by homeschooling. However, true relationship takes a lot of time. One thing I do with my two girls, is to write a journal back and forth. I write a letter to them and leave it in their room and when they receive it, they write one back. It is a lot of fun and amazing the things I learn about them, especially my oldest daughter.
Rosanna recently posted..My Five Favorite Things about Homeschooling
I sit with my son while he does his math. He seems to get a mental block, but if I am just sitting there, to tell him yes or no on the answer, he seems to do much better. He doesn’t even need help, just someone to bounce his thoughts off while he works out the problem.
My son is like that, too. He wants to do most of his math with me. He knows it; he just wants that reassurance before he hits enter after putting in his answer.