The Best Kids Reward: A Private Date with Mom or Dad
Posted by: Christine Mullins in Motivational MusicKendra asked a great question that many other parents have too:
“My children tend to “dream big” and are wanting to pick costly dates. How have you helped to set the expectation that a date could be going to Home Depot with dad and getting a treat?”
Well, I’m glad you asked about the dates. You can gain the most amazing benefit from playing the Children’s Miracle Music game by going on the right kind of “Private Dates”. These dates should only be spaces of time where all attention can be given to each other regardless of the place or function of the date. For instance, a “movie” date is out since the attention is given to the movie screen. A date where a child just comes along with his parent who has his focus on the errand he is running is out. One of my favorite “Private Date” memories happened when my daughter and I weren’t able to go on the date she had set for her “Goal” and we ended up at the only place that was open. It was Smith’s grocery store. We bought an ice cream cone and walked around the store with no other agenda than to laugh with each other. We played with the stuffed animals and made them talk as we laughed uncontrollably and ended up swinging on the porch swing that was set up inside the store. This was about seven years ago. My daughter is all grown now and has moved out of the house. I don’t remember what we talked about that day but I do remember the feeling of closeness that we gained - and so does she. We were gone for only about an hour and spent about $1.50.
Another one of my favorite dates was with my son. We didn’t have time or money to go out with all seven children every two weeks so we let them choose an “out of home” date once a month. The other dates were “in home” ones. This date was an “in home” date. I put a sock in the door to lock the other kids out of my son’s room and then put a large blanket on the floor. We played swap and ate treats while we talked and laughed together. Even though we didn’t ‘go’ anywhere, the same closeness was gained because we followed the rule to only focus on each other without interruption or secondary agenda. These kinds of dates build the forever emotionally close relationships that we have families for in the first place. I hope these examples help. We will be posting more great “Private Date” ideas soon and would love to hear first-hand from you about some of the best private dates you have had with your children.
Please leave comments and questions here in the blog comment section. (Click the link at the bottom of the post.)
All My Best,
Christine
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Dear Christine,
Thank you for this blog about ideas for private dates! This was my biggest concern since we have 6 children and it’s simply not practical to take them out each time they earn the points. Wonderful suggestions! Thank you for sharing!
I am a mother of five, ages 4-25. I know this is not officially a ‘date’ but it is in the same subject line and I hope it will be helpful to others in my situation. I am far from a perfect parent and I have learned this lesson over time with the help of a child whose needs demanded a lot of personal growth in me. I have a HIGHLY social 4 year old who is my only child at home. He was a late in life baby and is 11 years behind his youngest sibling… all girls. One to three of his sisters was home during his first two years so when they all moved out or started high school, his HIGH NEED for interaction was DRAINING when suddenly it was just myself and him at home all day. I have an in home business and it was virtually impossible to get work done at this stage. I believe strongly that a child benefits greatly from learning ‘happy solitude’ no matter what his personality and to entertain himself PRODUCTIVELY. I have gradually stretched our son in this ability over the past two years and he is doing WONDERFULLY with it. It makes SUCH a TREMENDOUS difference in our day when I practice being ALL THERE when he comes to me and asks: “What do you want to do, Mom?” This is a CHOICE for me because it doesn’t come naturally for my goal oriented personality. If I immediately take just 10 minutes to put on his four year old passion in my activity with him with an ‘I’m ALL HERE focus’ … he will subsequently entertain himself constructively for long periods in between. It is the FOCUSED ATTENTION to his need for interaction that makes the difference. Because I want to be his role model, I have resisted the temptation to load him down with friends to make things easier for myself … other four year olds cannot train and are never the behavior models that I want for his PRIMARY role modeling. It has also been necessary to limit his TV to one movie a week which has been a hard choice for me. But with his personality he becomes addicted to the audio-visual and then combative in lobbying about it if I give him more than that… he wants it all the time and this, I know, is not healthy for his development. I give him moderate time with friends through the week with play dates and ‘park’ time, but the thing which has helped me the most in parenting his needs is those 10 minute dates with him through the day which seem to have enabled him to become independent in entertaining himself [usually in the same room where I am working/writing]. He is ALL BOY and VERY strong willed, yet he has gotten into LESS mischief than my more compliant girls did, I feel in part because I did not GIVE myself to this practice with them [and partly because there's only ONE of him to devise mischief]. He is intensely passionate and sensitive and I’ve had to learn a whole new style of parenting to help him gain control of himself when he is disappointed or angry. The BONDING which this practice of having ‘be all there moments’ has produced has also played a vital role in my ability to train him to comply willingly without a major meltdown when it comes time to go in a direction/ do an activity that he doesn’t want to do. I am thrilled with the effectiveness of this positive focused, parental attention and I TOTALLY TRACK WITH YOUR USE OF THIS AS THE ULTIMATE GIFT TO A CHILD.