Part 3 – Including Your Children in Activities with You

Part 3 – How to Include Your Children in Activities with You

Three More Examples of Ways to Include Your Children in Your Activities

This post is the last in the series of including your children in your activities. It will make more sense to you if you go back and read Part 1 and Part 2

– Include your children by attending a local farm to table cooking class for kids. At the end of the class you get to eat what they have made together. You can enjoy it with some fresh lemonade or tomato soup on a picnic blanket in their backyard. Now this is a great idea. My kids always were quick to eat things like spinach and turnips fresh from the garden. Unless we baked bread and brought along some cheese and mayo, this idea wouldn’t have worked for us. However, it is a great idea and promotes healthy eating choices.

Fresh vegetables

-Have them come shopping with you at your favorite grocery store, farmer’s market etc. This activity has its own special treats for parents as they try to get through a store with a child who wants one of everything. When you look away, the child has opened the saltines and spread a trail of crumbs that Hansel and Gretel could have followed to get out of the forest. Lay some ground rules before store trips, and you will have a much better time. Also, take some snacks to ease the feeling that your child is hungry. I found that if I asked each older child to go fetch one thing for me, it gave me time to think clearly about other things on my list. Just be sure you don’t send them for things in glass jars or any item within 75 feet of the candy aisle.

Making a grocery list

– Have your children come up with their own ideas of what they would like to do and plan an activity around it. You can set parameters around the requests, so they are do-able for your family. No sense in having a child ask for a trip to Hawaii when it isn’t possible.

Some tips I learned as a foster parent of teens

Your children are probably young, unless you are raising babies, toddlers, preschoolers and teens at the same time as we have.

If it will be a few years before you have teens, you can tuck this information away for when you will need it. Or you can share this website and blog with a friend who is raising teens.

When I was a foster parent, I asked each child to tell me one thing they had never done but would like to do. Hawaii never came up. I told them that if it were at all possible, I would make that happen for them before they left my home. Their part of the deal needed to be that they followed their plan and worked toward their goals.

Under normal circumstances, kids would ask for a meal at a fancy restaurant, ice cream, a trip to the mall with some cash, mostly local requests.

Because I mainly fostered teen girls, they had big requests most of the time. Once I took a girl to Disneyland and the Pacific Ocean since she had never been to either in her life and wanted to go. It was a big ask (and wasn’t that far away) She was able to turn her life around in many ways and actually earned the award. After 19 years, she still keeps in touch with me.

One other girl wanted to take an airplane trip anywhere because she had never flown. We did that, flying on a short trip to a neighboring state and back. That fit in with an already-planned vacation. One simply wanted to go to an amusement park in a nearby city.

One wanted to enter the America’s Top Model contest one state away. She did. I was able to do all these things for them because they kept up their end of the bargain with me.

Privileges are earned. Love is not earned. Including your children in “spending” their privileges creates closeness.

As my bio, foster and adopted children asked for things, they knew there were strings attached to privileges. You do what you know to do, and the privileges are available.

Keep in mind that there are no strings attached to love. We just love them without expecting anything in return. As they grow and see that example, they develop respect for that viewpoint and hopefully love without expectations.

There you have it. My favorite list of things to do to include your children, increase respect, interaction and build memories with them. Developing a sense of humor along the way helps as conflicts arise, but it is love that carries a family through the difficult times.

Parenting is a most challenging job. But, it’s also rewarding and worth every second! There are many ways to interact with your child that can help you both grow as individuals. Look for ways to include your children in your everyday activities and see how they bloom.

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