Kiddipedia
Valentine’s Day is a chance to role model a loving relationship to your children
Demonstrating a loving, healthy relationship to your children is one of the best gifts you can give them. What you both role model now is what they will see as normal and how a loving relationship should work, so it is worth providing positive opportunities to show them.
Valentine’s Day is a great chance to spend some special time with your partner and to remind them how much you love them. It is also an opportunity to show your children how you express love with your partner in a positive way.
Make it fun, special days break up the monotonous nature of normal weeks with running a household, sharing the parenting load, juggling children around work commitments and daycare and school activities.
It’s a day dedicated to love and you can show your love to your children as well. This can be as simple as saying “I love you” and “Happy Valentine’s Day” or all getting up a little earlier and cooking heart-shaped pancakes for each other to enjoy.
Happy Parents… Happier Kids…
So it’s Valentines Day and what’s the point? Right? You don’t have time, or the $$ or the energy and enthusiasm. Parenting can be a challenge, and so can relationships. But did you know they are intertwined, entwined, correlated and co-joined? Yes, that’s it – your couple relationship and your child relationship (s) are inter-connected and related.
We know that children are observant and vulnerable. They watch what goes on around them, and learn from it. They need responsible and respectful parents – who can role-model a healthy, loving relationship, and respect of others……Your child needs to see you being cared for and loved by another, and for you to show love and respect for another, and for each of you, to love and respect your child. We all learn from the adults around us and this affects our growth, our personality, our strengths, our current and future interactions and relationships. Surprise?!
Depositing into the emotional bank account of your child
Have you ever thought about the importance of demonstrating positive relationships to your child?
We know how a regular bank account works: we make regular deposits (and withdrawals), and hopefully, put enough aside for a rainy day. But, what is an emotional bank account? Dr Stephen R. Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, uses the metaphor of an emotional bank account to describe how parents can build – and break down – relationships with their children. He suggests that deposits are made when parents proactively do things that build trust, while withdrawals are made by reactively doing things that decrease trust.
Valentine Gifts that Keep on Giving
Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?
Is it a celebration that you look forward to each year? Well, I used to before kids.
Now after three kids, it is a lot harder to be spontaneously romantic, or at the very least get to eat at a nice restaurant that doesn’t cater to my kid’s limited diet choices.
OH, how I wish to be somewhere that hubby and I can finally have an uninterrupted adult conversation, eat what we want and not have any whining at the table or for the whole duration of the evening.
Do We Really Need Valentine’s Day?
Do we really need a special day to profess our love with some grand gesture complete with jewelry, flowers, chocolates or even some specialty, purpose-designed, hardly practical but unusually interesting underwear?
Valentine’s day has its origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia. The festival celebrated the coming of spring. It also included fertility rites and the pairing off of women and men by a lottery, sort of an ancient “Tinder” by the sounds of it?
Parenting and Valentine’s Day – Role Modelling Respectful Relationships
We all know children are sponges and look to the adults in their life to show them how to relate to the world and the people in it. It is a BIG job!! From the early months of life, children are watching and learning from the voices and actions around them. There is no one right way to show children what healthy relationships look like.
Of course, relationships can look very different in different families and cultures – but a respectful relationship is always a SAFE one. That is the first and most important aspect of relationships that we can role model for children. Everyone in the family should feel safe – they should not be afraid that someone is going to hurt them physically or force them to do things or threaten them.
The Devoted Year
Valentine’s Day is a day that many show their love for their loved one….Or if you are keen on someone you show them how you feel.
As parents, it is vital to show kids that you value each other and your relationship. Spending time with your partner and showing the kids that you love each other is good for all.
Children who see their parents kiss, cuddle and make time for each other are investing well in their relationship and helping their children see what a good relationship is and how to keep it going.
How to positively demonstrate your relationship to your children
Children are more aware and knowledgeable than we like to think, which is why we might underestimate their ability to absorb information that we demonstrate in our everyday lives. Their little eyes and ears pick up everything, that’s why the one time you said “shit” they copied you right away – and now you know to watch your language around them.
Well, the same goes with your behaviour as parents and how you present yourselves as a couple; your children will look up to you and believe your relationship is what all romantic relationships are like. As parents, you are your child’s first example of a partnership, so it only makes sense that they will mimic what your relationship is like when they get older.
Why Valentine’s Day is often a Missed Opportunity for Dads
Valentine’s day is celebrated as a day of romance and to express our deepest love to the people we care about. Often that’s our wives, our partners or our girlfriends. As a dad though, there is another opportunity for you.
Why not use Valentine’s day as a trigger to express your love to your kids? Now, if you’re like most men, the very notion of expressing love, even to your kids, is probably going to make you want to vomit. Alternatively, you might want to dismiss this with thoughts of, “That’s dumb! Of course, my kids know I love them” or “I already show my kids I love them.”
Children Learn How to have Adult Relationships from Observing their Parents
For many couples, Valentine’s Day may just be another Hallmark Day, yet to others, it is a day that they can choose to make their partner feel particularly special and model to the children the attitudes and behaviours that they can adopt in their own adulthood. All special occasions (like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter, Christmas and birthdays) put your relationship under the microscope and your children use these occasions, in particular, as learning opportunities to see you and your partner interacting.
Children have the eyes of a hawk. They seem to see and hear everything. They also sense any vibrational changes that you may have. As a divorced parent, your children will have sensed many of your emotional changes along your separation journey.
8 Ways to Model a Healthy Relationship to your Children
With overexposure to the internet and social media these days, we all need to be careful what role modelling our children receive. Our children are our future leaders and more now than ever, we need to instil solid values on which they can base their decision making on.
Teaching these values must begin in the home. Too many parents are giving away their responsibility in educating their children, believing that their children will learn all they need to know at school.
Children learn best by observation. Monkey see monkey do. No doubt, as a parent, you have heard and seen yourself in your children, sometimes in such a way that we are forced to re-evaluate our own behaviour.
Kid-Friendly Ideas for Valentine’s Day
Creating your own family traditions can be so much fun, and Valentine’s day is the perfect moment to get together and celebrate. So here’s a programme of ideas to fit into your day, crafting cards and sharing a cute themed meal (or two) together.
Crafting Cards
The quintessential Valentine’s Day craft, here are a few ideas, perfect for a range of ages.
