I think we can all agree that we want to create a bank of beautiful childhood memories with our children! It can be challenging though as we as a society get busier and busier. As our children get older and get involved in more activities, we can find that the bulk of our interactions with our children are telling them to get ready for the next thing. "Hurry up! Change for practice! Grab a snack, we need to leave in 5 minutes!" Obviously, we don't want our children to just remember us as the one who was always telling them to get going. We want to create lasting beautiful memories with them!
According to the research on goodtherapy.org, memories can last longer if they involve an emotion, if they engage all the senses, and if they are recalled and shared. Engaging all of the senses can happen when we simply take a moment with our kids to notice things. Notice the colors, smells, and sounds of nature as you go for a quick walk or plant the garden. Notice all the details in a picture instead of just reading through the book with your child to get it done. Take a moment to savor a meal together and talk about the tastes and ask your child about their day. Involving an emotion can happen anytime you share a hug, chase your child giggling through the house, or comfort them when they are sad. Recalling memories together can be so much fun. Looking through old pictures and videos, telling stories about the past, giggling about the silly things you have done, are all great ways to cement those great memories.
The crazy thing about memories though, is similar memories tend to get lumped together into one memory. For example, if you make an effort to have game night every Friday night. That is great and will be a great memory, but it will be blended into one memory. If you want to create a large bank of childhood memories, you need to create varied memories. I heard a really fun suggestion on the Focus on the Family podcast for creating lots of fun and varied memories. The interviewee recommended celebrating national holidays with your kids. She celebrated a national holiday every weekday with her kids. It was just part of her homeschooling. I loved the idea although I knew I could never sustain daily celebrations. I made it a goal to celebrate once a week. I had good intensions. I would look up the holidays. We would occasionally celebrate one, but more often I forgot.
It's so hard to start something like this when you are busy. But it's so important to add lovely memories to your week with your kids! So, I have decided to help all of us with this important and fun mission to add some fun memories to our week! I created a printable for you for the month of March. And I plan to continue to create these for you each month. I picked a national holiday for each Monday of the month.
Simply print out the printable on cardstock. Fold the signs in half. And put them in a prominent place Monday morning. There are several ideas for celebrating on the back of the sign. Some might require some advance preparation. Either refer to the prep sheet included with the printable and gather the items in advance, or run out and get the items on Monday and celebrate later in the day or later in the week. Either way you will be creating fun memories. Your kids won't care if you're team "plan in advance" or team "plan on the fly."
Want to try the printable to see if it works for your family? Click the button to get the March set for free!
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