Parenting Tip: Date Night

In a household with three young children, ages 1 to 5, it is so easy to overlook the needs of one child. Or actually, it is easy to overlook the needs of all the children. Diapers, potty accidents, refilling milk cups, library and doctor visits, grocery shopping, preparing three meals a day, breaking up fights, and finally getting them all down for naps or bedtime can consume hours of activity without actually giving that personal moment of attention that a child needs to feel special, unique, loved, and wanted. And oh yeah, did I mention your own bathroom breaks, food needs, and downtime? You gotta take care of yourself too, or you will not be fit to parent.

We took a tip from some friends of ours who have more kids than we do. They establish a weekly date night, and the kids take turns on who gets special time with Mommy and Daddy. The nice thing about this schedule is that after each girl gets her Tuesday night date, Mommy and Daddy get there night together to put girls to bed a little early and have some time for just the two of us.

Our Date Night is on Tuesdays, and last night was R’s night. Sometimes R gets overshadowed by an older sister who has more advanced language skills, and sometimes she gets overlooked with a younger sister who gets into everything. Date night is the perfect opportunity for us to single her out for special activities, and we have noticed how much more confident and secure she seems when she gets this attention.

The night started with M & R working on their wooden model kits with Daddy, and when they were done, M went to bed and R started drawing. She is not able to write yet, but she created stories to go with all of her pictures. This was an opportunity for us to encourage our timid, tender-hearted girl to talk more freely, so I listened attentively to her stories about being captured in a net and Mommy coming to save her. She described all the items on the pictures and explained to me what each thing was.

We stapled her pages together to make a book, which she then added “words” and then read the words to me.

Then we had a reading lesson from the book Teach Your Child How to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We are on lesson 12, and she is learning to string sounds together to make words. When her sisters are awake, it is hard to get her undivided attention because she wants to play, but she got really excited when she learned that lesson 13 starts to have pictures with stories that she gets to read.

She drank hot chocolate with marshmallows and reread her picture book to me, and when she finally went to bed with some story books, there was a big smile on her face, and her little eyes were shining with joy, knowing that she is truly special to us.