Dads Question of the Week

I, personally, try to make sure that I take my son on Mother/Son dates. When we go on a "date", my husband takes our daughter on a date. The kids love the "special time" they get with each of us! I usually allow my son to call the shots and we do truly what "he" wants. So far, I have not had to limit him... he usually picks the most simple activities. Asking your kids what they want is usually an eye-opening experience. They don't really want to spend a lot of money. They just want to spend a LOT of TIME with YOU.

With two daughters relatively close in age, there is a lot of fighting for attention. That leads to lots of talking over each other, attempts to one-up their sister, or unhappy faces at bed time. We try little things like giving each a chance to say at dinnertime how their day went. I've tried very hard to create individual opportunities with each of my daughters...father/daughter breakfasts; father/daughter dances; one-on-one bedtime stories or games; errand running; movie nights; donuts with Dad (at school). I hope this individual time makes them feel special.

I try to identify what my children like as individuals. We have plenty of activities we can do as a group. But, the one thing that I learned is that each of my children have their own "Special Interest". Once identified the things they like to do as individuals, I started hobby days for each of them. ie. My son like to dig in the dirt and pretend to look for fossils and my daughter doesn't like getting dirty. My daughter like to sew and do stitch work project and my son thinks, "that stuff is for girls." This approach almost guarantees that there will be no interference from the other sibling.