#5 Visit Your Childhood Places

Visit Childhood Places and Memories:

Vist your childhood places is a great way to spend one-on-one time with your kids! Do you happen to live in the same area with your children as you did when you were growing up? If so, make a date out of taking your child to see some of those meaningful places for you when you were growing up. Don’t overthink it. Take them to the parks you visited, the house you grew up in, your schools, church, the list goes on. Talk to them about your experiences at each of those places, and the depth of those conversations will vary depending on the age of your child. 

WMTDS (What Makes This Date Special):

Revisiting your childhood places and memories gives your child a glimpse into your childhood, which is meaningful regardless of your child’s age. They will be interested if they are 5-6 and they will be interested if their 18. You’ve talked to them about your childhood. Seeing these locations gives them some in-person images to go along with those stories. Every date you spend with your child brings you closer to them, no doubt about it, but this one goes a step further and helps your child understand more of who you are and will allow (especially if their older) a deeper bond with you as a result. Don’t shy away from talking about the possible hard times you had at these places. Your children need to understand some of the difficulties you went through as a child. 

Teachable Moments:

Use some of the experiences you had visiting your childhood places to be teachable moments. Each of your stories at each location allows teachable moments. There are a few things our children can learn more from than our own experiences. 

Variations:

If you don’t live in the same area that you did as a child, you can create this experience with as many pictures or home videos that you might have. It might not have quite the same effect, but it is still very meaningful for you to sit down and spend one-on-one time with them through pictures. Google Earth is also a great tool for this.

Take them to the places that are special to you and their other parent. Where did you meet? Where did you go on your first date? Where did you get married? You may be divorced or no longer with that person, but it will still be very special to the child you had together to show them some of these places. You may not care or like that person now, but at one point, you probably did. Talk about all the positive aspects of that relationship. A visit to your childhood places will be a special one-on-one with them regardless of whether you’re still together or not. I promise.  

Categories:

Sentimental. Relationships. History.

Expense:

Free!

Planning:

How much planning is needed will simply depend on your situation. You may be able to get in the car and just go with no planning at all, or you can put some planning and creativity into it and make this an even better experience. Call the school that you attended and see if they will let you guys take a tour. Do the same with the house you grew up in. Have lunch at the restaurant where you met your husband/wife. The more creative you can be, the more visiting your childhood places will mean to your child. 

Materials Needed:

No materials needed

Google/Pinterest Search:

NA

Reference Websites:

Is it okay to ask if you can visit your childhood home?

You can go home again and maybe you should

Google Earth (must use a Chrome browser)

Amazon Resources:

NA

Alternatives:

For a list of other ideas on how to spend one-on-one time with your child, see the full list here. 

Related Videos

NA