Forget the men! This one’s for the kids! Having a night once a week to spend one on one can help keep a strong relationship with your children. Between everyone’s busy schedules it can be difficult to get in that quality time with your children. They’re busy doing homework and playing with friends. You’re busy working and holding down the house. It is important not to let those things get in the way of spending time together.
Set aside a night every week and don’t let anything get in the way of it. You may be overwhelmed with a project at work or with the mounds of laundry sitting on the floor, but they will all still be there when you get home. Children grow up in the blink of an eye. You don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to build that relationship with them simply because you wanted to get your laundry done.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money; it could be something as small as taking them out to ice cream, a dollar movie, or even just a walk on the beach. The important thing is that you are spending time together and that your child knows that they are a priority to you. They know that even though you are busy, you are making the time for them. It can be a great bonding opportunity for the two of you. Some of my fondest memories as a child were nights when it was just me and Mom. We’d rent old Cary Grant movies and watch them in her bed until all hours of the night. It gave us a chance to sit down and talk to each other about the every day things that were going on in our lives. She knew which boys I thought were cute at school, she knew if I had gotten into a fight with a friend, she knew if I had gotten an A on my spelling test, she knew everything because she made sure that we had time to talk. She could have been focused on other things. She was an elementary school teacher, she had plenty to do when she got home from school every day, but she made sure that I was her number one priority.
Date nights with Mom are some of my fondest memories of my childhood. It made our relationship what it is today. Neither one of us has much time for Cary Grant anymore, but we always have time for each other.