How to Make Happy Memories With Your Children
Sometimes we worry that we won’t be able to make happy memories with our children, but the truth is that they need very little in order to have fond memories of their childhood. Let me put your worries to rest.
The Most Important Piece
What your children most need is quality time with YOU.
That is what makes happy memories. If you think of the stories you have heard or what your own fun memories where, don’t they usually include something simple with the parents present?
Our children need us to be there for them, even though we can’t provide for a bunch of extras.
Smile at them, and laugh and play with them. You will see it will bring them joy.
They Probably Won’t Have Your Kind of Memories
When we were growing up, my mom sometimes lamented that we were not getting good childhood memories. We did not have Christmas feasts and go camping like her family had always done.
I always wondered what the fuss was. Maybe we didn’t have so many traditions, but we had lots of good memories – all kinds of pets, truck trips, restaurant dates, swimming pool visits, fishing trips, etc.
One day after becoming a mother myself, I understood her feelings. My girlies and I heard horses trotting by so we ran to see. As we looked out the window, a pang of sadness came over me. My girls would likely not have my type of happy memories.
We live on a small plot of land in a somewhat urban area. I spent most of my growing-up years on larger farms. My girls will probably not get to ride horses often like I did, have the variety of pets we enjoyed growing up, or play in woods and creeks for hours like I had.
At the moment it sure looks like they won’t experience many road trips or even restaurant meals like we did. It seemed like they would miss out on a happy childhood.
But wait… I did not feel like I missed out on a happy childhood because of not having my mom’s kind of memories. I determined right then to not lament my children’s “losses.” They would not feel it anyway. We were not going to feel sorry for ourselves about the lack of “good memories.”
How to Make Happy Memories
The more I thought about it, the more I knew my children could have lots of happy childhood memories. They will be a new kind of memories – different from mine, different from my mom’s, different from their dad’s – but happy memories. We would make memories – happy, joyful, ones – for them.
It’s in the Simple Things
Think about your childhood. What are your happiest memories? Isn’t it usually the simple things?
It might just have to be picnics and parks in town, walks to meet Daddy coming home, and baking to cheer others. It might not be the family vacations, or pets, that I would have had, but our children won’t realize the difference much if it is all tied together with joy.
Sure the trips and extras are special, but it’s because everyone is together enjoying a good time.
I am not saying we shouldn’t do those “extras,” but that in itself isn’t what makes a childhood happy or not. It’s the time spent together enjoying life with us, and our attitudes in those times that make the happy, lasting memories for our children.
Plan Some Traditions
As I have thought about this whole “happy memory” thing, I see that family traditions are important as well. They don’t have to look like your childhood traditions, nor like anyone else’s.
Traditions have a great way of tying the years together. If your family doesn’t have any, why don’t you come up with new traditions. It could simply be your way of celebrating birthdays, the New Year, or your first day of school each year.
Why live in regret when we can have happy memories with what we have?
Work on Your Own Perspective
All this is my thought process, but I still work with it in real life sometimes. Like when I watched a bunch of young cousins swimming and doing all kinds of water tricks. I felt sad that, even though my girls loved the water, they would likely not learn all that because we don’t live near creeks like that. But life is not about swimming.
At the moment it also looks like they won’t enjoy growing up around a bunch of friends or a nice youth group, like I did. But then they might not struggle as much with the loneliness I have gone through. They will likely be better equipped and stronger than I to stand alone.
Count Your Blessings
It all depends on our focus. If we look at someone in a “higher category,” we might be tempted to feel sorry for our children. But just a little bit of thinking will remind us of others who have “less than” we do.
I say it like that because it’s about our perspectives. Some children “have it all” but they just really wish their parents took time for them. Others had “nothing” but looking back on their childhood they have so many happy, simple memories.
Many times I also find that God supplies for what we lack. Take horse riding for example. While I often rode a horse in my younger years because we had one, my children don’t have that but they have a neighbor that has let them get a horse ride once or twice.
We don’t have the nice creeks for swimming nearby like I did, but when we go visit my parents they do have the opportunity at a nice river there.
Yes, my children are blest, and as I learn to discover the blessings in a life that does not have many of the ideals I used to enjoy, as I learn in which direction to look, I find that I am so abundantly blest too. We will have many good memories of this stage in life.
Summing it up.
Good memories are like the threads that tie our childhood together. We create happy memories with our children so they can look back fondly on the time they spent at home
Use what you have and enjoy your time together. The children will remember more how they felt than what you did.
