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55+ Activities to Strengthen the Parent Child Relationship

October 25, 2015 by Jaimi Erickson 4 Comments

Ready to have the ENERGY to be the best mom you can be? Get started! Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome back! Did you already get started here?

Welcome to Mom Motivation Mondays where weekly contributing writers share their motherhood experiences to encourage you to find the joy in being a mom.

{This week: Post by Jenn Gigowski}

Over 55 activities for kids to do with parents when you get one-on-one time with your child. These are really helpful for fostering a stronger parent child relationship.

 

“Mama, this is great. Just you and me. Nobody else. I like it.”

Jace, my newly turned six-year-old, looked at me over his ketchup-covered plate. He was wearing his Steak-n-Shake hat and sporting a bit of ketchup on his face. We were out for his birthday dinner. Just the two of us, since we couldn’t afford to take the whole family out. We’d been having a nice discussion over coloring and sticker-playing and stopped talking for a bit to eat our meals. It had been a few minutes of yummy silence between us when he surprised me with that gem. It was precious, and I’m so thankful for how it blessed our parent child relationship.

Jace at Steak-n-Shake

Do you ever just spend one-on-one time with your children? If you have more than one child, it’s often difficult to get away with just one. My husband and I each try to schedule one-on-one time  with each child whenever possible. For us, it usually involves going out of the house for free or cheap, but staying home and hanging out, just two of you, is great for fostering the parent child relationship too. I am sharing a BIG list with you to get the ideas flowing-over 55 activities for kids to do with you to strengthen your parent child relationship.

One of the best things about spending time with your child doing things he enjoys is being able to have open dialogue about everything. When it’s just the pair of you, all your attention is on your child and all of his focus is on you. These are precious moments to get to know the personality and ideas and dreams and opinions inside your little one. It’s also time for him to see how much you care about him, and to notice that you’re actually someone worthy of listening to.

My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

{Proverbs 1:8-9}

Activities that Strengthen the Parent Child Relationship

(Note: Most of these will work for any combo – Mother-son, Mother-daughter, Father-son, Father-daughter, but some of them are more obviously slanted one way or the other. You know your child and what he or she will like best.)

Quick tip: Most of these would even be good for a Hubby-Wife date night, and would also work as a whole family fun date!


Go to a dance – dress up fancy, pick up like going on a date

Go to a worship service

Volunteer at

  • a mission
  • Habitat for Humanity
  • soup kitchen

Go out to Eat

  • a place where kids eat free
  • a picnic
  • an ice cream shop
  • a fine dining meal – dress up fancy, pick up like going on a date

Go to the Store

  • to do regular grocery shopping or errands
  • to go window shopping
  • to pick out something special
  • to a used bookstore or a thrift store

Have fun together

  • batting cages
  • miniature golf
  • Chess, Checkers, Monopoly, Battleship, Pictionary, Charades, Mad-libs
  • Truth or Dare
  • Hide & Seek (admittedly, not as much talking time here!)
  • bowling
  • pool
  • tennis
  • ping-pong
  • skee-ball
  • air hockey
  • foosball
  • frisbee
  • go-karts
  • zip-line
  • arcade games

Make a meal together

  • pizza
  • taco night
  • his/her favorite meal
  • themed meal – 50s diner, authentic French, Italian, Polish or other cuisine

Wash the car together

Go to a bounce house

Go to a farmer’s market

Go to the local YMCA and find something to do together

Ride bikes

Go to a circus, carnival, fair or festival

Discus and write down prayer requests

Go geocaching

Go rock climbing

Watch the sunrise

Watch the sunset

Look at stars

Find constellations

Camp out in the back yard (or camp-in if the weather is bad)

Go backpacking

Read the Bible and discuss it

Go roller skating, roller blading, ice skating or skiing

Visit an art gallery, museum, zoo, aquarium or planetarium

Go to the apple orchard

Wash the dog

Rake the leaves

Design and build LEGO creations

Play dress-up

Go out as twins with matching outfits, hairdos and accessories

Go boating, canoeing, kayaking or tubing

Start a new hobby

  • knitting
  • crocheting
  • sewing
  • models
  • jewelry-making
  • painting

Visit a farm

Go fishing

Go horseback riding

Go on a scavenger hunt

Go to a pottery painting place

Go on a walk or a jog

Have a race

Fly a kite

Build a sand castle or snow fort

Go swimming

Go to the playground

Start an art project

Go to a family-friendly Karaoke place

Work on a crossword puzzle

Go hiking

Go to an entertaining event

  • concert
  • truck rally
  • ball-game
  • musical
  • play
  • family-friendly comedy club

Read a book – take turns reading chapters aloud

Write a story

Write a song

Work on a puzzle

Take a class together

  • dance lessons
  • music lessons
  • art lessons
  • foreign language lessons

Need some ideas for one-on-one time with your child? We have 55+ ideas shared to help strengthen your parent child relationship. These are inexpensive activities for kids to do with parents. 
 

I hope these ideas can spark an interest in you and that you and your child will have a great time getting to know each other better. Make it a regular event and try new things!


Dear Lord,

Thank you so much for the gift that my children are to me. You have blessed me so much with them, and I treasure each of them so much. You are a great, good God. Help us to not take for granted these precious children who will only be little for a short time. Just 18 summers are given to us at the beginning of their lives. That’s not long. Please help us to make the most of our time with them while they are in our homes, so that when they are grown, they will still want to have a relationship with us.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

God bless,

Jenn


 

Jenn of Busy Being BLessed a monthly contributor to the series Mom Motivation Mondays at The Stay-at-Home-Mom Survival Guide.Jenn Gigowski is a Christian wife to an amazing man and a stay-at-homeschooling mom to four special & incredible boys (11.5, 10, 8, 6). Busy Being Blessed, by both Jenn and her husband Jerry, is to show families of the grace of God in everyday lives. She loves writing authentic posts so that others can know that perfection isn’t reality! Posts vary from general Christian living, parenting special needs children, gluten free living, homeschooling, and more! Follow them on Facebook, Pinterest & Twitter. Jenn also loves making digital creations and giving them to newsletter subscribers! 🙂


 

What are your favorite ways to spend one-on-one time with your child?

Need to catch up on all the Mom Motivation shared each Monday? 

Click the image and be motivated!

A weekly series of motivation for moms brought to you by stay at home mom bloggers at The Stay-at-Home Mom Survival Guide.

Need a routine or schedule ideas for life as a stay-at-home mom?

This resource has you covered.

Routines and Schedule ideas for stay-at-home moms. If you need to try to find a schedule or new routine, this resource has so many printables to help!

Successful Mom Daily Checklist to help you gain balance between housework and play time with the kids. Get more done, and feel more successful as a mom and homemaker.

Enjoy your time at home!

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Filed Under: activities, motivation Tagged With: MMM contributors

Comments

  1. Nantambi vivian says

    September 2, 2019 at 11:34 am

    Thnx

    Reply
  2. Eric says

    May 3, 2019 at 1:31 am

    I liked it the information that you shared in this article, I followed most of them and love doing the activities where I can build a strong relationship with my son.

    Reply
    • Jaimi Erickson says

      May 4, 2019 at 2:23 pm

      Great! Thanks for stopping by.

      Reply

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They are my own little girl group and I am grateful for it. They love me on my bad days and give me compliments I do not even deserve. 

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Will you be spending time with family for Easter? Will you be spending time with family for Easter? 

My husband’s parents have arrived - adding one more big dog to our house and lots of crafts and fun. We have not seen them since June. Everyone is excited to spend time together.

Both of my big kids have birthdays and we will all get to spend time at the beach this month. Our school work will morph into field trips so we soak up every day we can being present with family. 

I am looking forward to making memories, soaking in time together and celebrating two milestone birthdays - one happening tomorrow. 💛 

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🌟The faces we make when a Costco run with all t 🌟The faces we make when a Costco run with all the kids actually goes well!!! 🌟 

Ice cream after helped of course. 😂

All prepped for my in-laws coming to visit us after not seeing them since our move last summer. Looking forward to some fun events ahead that will make my kids think they are on spring break but they will technically be field trip days. Check, check. 

Are you guys on spring break this week? What do you have planned?

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Some days you put on the 10 year old comfy jeans, Some days you put on the 10 year old comfy jeans, fill your mind with encouragement and just keep moving forward. 

Recovery days are not just for working out. They are for the mental state we walk around with too. Yesterday felt heavy. My God is a power lifter and takes the burden away. 

Today will be better.

Today we will rest and refocus.

Hooray for comfy jeans, motivational graphics and the Word to focus on through it all. 

(Faith fashion: @choseninchrist use code Jaimi to save.)

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🌟That Face!!🌟 That little boy is soon to t 🌟That Face!!🌟 

That little boy is soon to turn 13, guys! I mean in a few weeks. 😅

This is a throwback but brings back so many fun memories. 

—————————————

I love creating activities and crafts on the fly. Always have even before my kids were here.

I noticed that my son did not have a lot of little toy people to play with while he was pretending one day. We have a few cylinder blocks in a set. We never used them when we built. I thought we could turn them into little DIY toy people. 

They were so cute and easy to make. It was a preschool art project for him. We made them together.

If you don’t have wooden cylindrical blocks at home, you can use pieces of wood dowel or even a few square blocks glued together. You can even make DIY toy people out of toilet paper tubes. 

🌟Full details through Blog link in bio 🌟

——————————————

I am so excited and yet in complete shock by how fast these little lives grow. I have never missed moments and I am so so grateful especially as we approach the teen years in my house. 💛 Soak up even the hard days of being a mom. TOTALLY worth it. 

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👌 There are a lot of parenting opinions out the 👌 There are a lot of parenting opinions out there. I try to ignore a lot of them. 😂 

My kids stay up later than most recommend, but so did I when I was a kid. 

She loves to read. She loves to write. Abby writes plays, journal entries, songs and on a bad day she will write her feelings about it all, in depth, no holds barred. 

This night she was trying to finish up a play - setting, character details, order of lines - for a play she made for her younger sister. 

I am so thankful that we can count her love of writing in her free time as school work. I am so thankful that how we do school allows this passion and talent to thrive. She has stacks of drawings, plays and writing blurbs. They are all precious to her.

There are days I question whether this choice or that choice is right or “approved,” but it does not matter when I see my children dive deep into the things they love. 

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Give me my people any day. Family time this Sund Give me my people any day. 

Family time this Sunday was a 5k fundraiser race. We helped raise 💵 for the spouses’ club scholarship fund. Scholarships will be awarded for post secondary education to military kids and spouses. 

If you can choose any action in life, choose to help others. Side bonus when it involves fun family time together.

Best day yet. 💛💛💛

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💛 Friday Introductions💛 It has been a while 💛 Friday Introductions💛

It has been a while since I did a good run-down here to give ya the cliffs notes (are those still a thing) version of me. 👋 

💛 Detroit-born a few blocks from where Eminem lived. The city is still my hometown despite moving away as a kid.

💛 I am a big believer in traditional values, but with a modern woman twist. My husband drives his career and I drive this household.

💛 We live in eastern NC 30 mins from the beach. I want to stay here forever, truly, but military life will come to an end some day...still don’t know specifically when that will be.

💛Born and raised to be a planner, Type A personality, having 4 kids beat that out of me 🤣 and I am very “day at a time” now. 

💛I was a teacher turned stay at home mom turned blogger turned entrepreneur that had to set it all on the back burner a bit to focus on homeschooling my kids. I can only have so much on my plate and complete it successfully. (When we listen, God guides and is loud and clear with His direction. 💛)

💛I believe I can be humble and confident; I can be fully present with my kids and make space to rest and rejuvenate; I believe the biggest successes I will achieve in life will not have a paycheck as its valuation. 

💛I believe that true peace, value and love all come from Jesus. 

You will find me sharing the ups AND the downs of motherhood, wife life, homeschooling and being a Christian woman with the modern day pull to fight what that can mean. (There is def a force trying to convince us to push those values aside, my friends.)

👌What is the cliffs notes version of you? What do you want people to know/realize most of all?

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🌟Teaching Kids to Make Friends🌟 Often our c 🌟Teaching Kids to Make Friends🌟

Often our children learn hard lessons when they have to move to a new state or school. 

My kids have become all too familiar with this through military life. Every three years they have to make new friends.

It is not always simple.

As a child, my family moved a lot. We were not military, but in junior high I moved to a new state and had to make all new friends.

This was a challenging and even to some extent a traumatic time of life.

Being the new kid, is a humbling experience. Suddenly you are hoping that your peers will want to get to know you and like you. It creates some self-consciousness.

Reading is such a beneficial way to teach children about life lessons. It teaches much more than that. It teaches self esteem through the cuddle time. It teaches language skills, and it teaches children to use their minds to be creative.

As they have grown and navigated more friendships, books are a resource for us to discuss tough challenges. I have found a great series of books that present friendship challenges and help children learn to navigate them.

It just so happens that the author is my neighbor too! How cool is that?! Moms are amazing.

These books will be treasured by your family for their quality values. The @stingrayjelly series teach children how to make friends and navigate friendships to love others well and support them through shared similarities and recognized differences.

Author, Lauren Giannella is a military wife and my neighbor! Anna Perdue is the illustrator and also a military child. 

Read my blog post for details on each book and links to purchase through @barnesandnoble 

We love our military community and all they do to give back.

What are your favorite children’s books that teach children how to make friends or help them maneuver through tough life challenges?

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