Showing Love to Your Child Everyday

I make sure to give them hugs before I leave for work, and I make sure to see them or find them, search them out when I get home from work to say hi to them no matter where they are. That way they know that they're loved and thought about. Each month on the date of each child's birthday, we take them out for their special day.

When we celebrate, we do something fun. We grab a little treat and just enjoy individual time with each child. My daughters are grown now, but I always try to be available when they contact me to text them regularly or respond quickly when they connect with me. I have two boys.

They're very different. For my oldest, he loves one-on-one time, so I make sure to give him that. My youngest loves games and pet names, so we do a lot of that, and we dance a lot at home. Some fun ideas about how to demonstrate love to your child. Today on Focus on the Family, we're going to explore even more ways to build vibrant memories for a strong family identity.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. Here's a question for you, John. As parents, do we love our children? Of course we do. Of course we love our kids, and we want them to feel that love.

But guess what? Everyday life creeps in there. You've got to get breakfast ready, get them off to school, or homeschool them, or whatever you're doing, and there's this to do and that to do, and it's hard throughout the day to remember to love our children and make sure that they feel loved. Here at Focus, we want to remind you to do that, and we're going to talk about that today. Some very unique ways that you may not have thought about that you can show your child love, and it's simple and doesn't take much time, and they get the impact of it, and that's an important thing to remember.

So often we downplay the love of God for us, and isn't it nice to feel the warmth and that love from our Lord in the ways that He does it for us, reminding us of something or reintroducing us to a friend that we haven't seen in a while, whatever it might be. Everyday as parents, we have that opportunity to make sure our kids know we love them, that God loves them, and that their future is bright. And that is the message that Julie Lavender has for us today. She's a journalist and former homeschooling mom, and she and her husband David have four adult children and a son-in-law and a grandson. Julie's also an author, and she's gathered a terrific collection of ideas in a book called 365 Ways to Love Your Child, Turning Little Moments into Lasting Memories, and we'll encourage you to look for your copy.

All the details are in the show notes. Julie, welcome to Focus on the Family. Thank you. I'm very glad to be here.

And I want to just dive in. Why do our kids translate special memories into feelings of being loved? Well, I think that when we build these memories as a family, I think it helps a child feel loved and valued. It creates a bond with common language of shared experiences. We can think about those things where we've laughed together, we've cried together, we've tried to solve a problem together, we've gone on a vacation together. Those shared experiences, that's a language that we only have, that nobody else shares that with us.

Yeah, it's so good. And I think that just gives us that common language. And I also think it gives us a common identity with that family unit and a sense of belonging.

Yeah. I love this next observation out of your book, 365 Ways to Love Your Child. You once retired as the mom of the house with a three-page retirement note, which Jean, when I told her that, she was laughing. So you got to tell all the moms listening, what was your retirement announcement? Well, and that was not one of my finer moments. That was... How old were the kids? That probably explains it. That's a disclaimer. The youngest was 10, the oldest was already in college, and I had a driver, a 16-year-old, and then my son would have been 13.

So they could kind of fend for themselves. And so it was my resignation letter. Not even a retirement letter, it was a resignation letter. And I cleared it with my husband first. You know, it was the beginning of falling prey to social media, and I was doing the comparison game, and I wasn't living up to other people's standards, and oh my goodness, everybody else's children seemed perfect. And I had a pity party. My children didn't appreciate me, they didn't love me, I didn't think they spent enough time with me, I didn't think they communicated with me. And I just, I guess I'd had a bad week. So I told my husband, I was going to resign, I started writing the letter, and it did turn into three pages, because I had a little short list of things that I had done for myself that week. That was the first thing I said, you know, this is all I've done for myself. And then I had a really long list of everything I had done for them, which I just thought was extensive, and nobody was appreciative. Every mom is listening right now.

Exactly. And so, you know, it was a really long list. It was getting close to, it was in October, we were making costumes for the fall festival at the church. I just felt like I had done so much and nobody was appreciating me. And so I told them they were responsible for their meals, for getting to dance, for getting to ballet, getting to guitar, getting to horseback.

They would have to work that out amongst themselves, ask somebody else, and I said, and maybe you'll tell that person thank you instead of you don't, your mom. So I, you know, and I even drove to where my son was living just across town in college and stuck a note in his car. So my children were mortified to begin with. And you know, I took some time for myself.

What I really did was go to the library and work on some of my writing projects. But you know, the crazy thing is, I learned the lesson before my children. I really only stayed resigned about two and a half days. But was it healthy? Did you feel good about it?

Well, when I first did it, I felt really good. And then I felt horrible, because what happened was, I don't know, I got a little nudge very quickly that I realized, oh, my gosh, this is how I treat God. I very quickly realized I didn't take the time to communicate with him as I got really busy and I didn't communicate with him as like I should, I didn't spend as much time with him. I was unappreciative of the amazing gifts he always gives me, of my blessings. I didn't appreciate my blessings.

I didn't thank him for all of my blessings. And so I very quickly felt like this was me. So I felt like I learned the lesson before them. They were shocked. They were stunned.

I'd never done anything like that before. How did they respond, though, in those two and a half days? They were very – Did it get their attention?

It did. It really got their attention, because I really did. They either had to work it out with their dad. I tried not to let him do too much, because I wanted them to see it was both of us together. And I explained he knew about this. But it really did get their attention. They mended their ways. They apologized. But you know what?

I sought forgiveness as well and apologized with the Lord. Yeah, and that's fair. And it's so funny that the Lord quickly pointed that out to you in your heart.

Funny how he does that, you know? But you have to be receptive to that. So many Christians, they'll feel like, you know, I don't really hear from the Lord. You just have to open your heart up, because I think he's communicating – I sure heard from him that day. – quite often. Maybe not on things we want to hear.

But let me ask you about those special moments. As I mentioned in the opening, I mean, we're so busy. We're getting lunches ready, and moms particularly. I mean, dad's out the door.

Maybe some work-at-home moms are, you know, maxed out too, you know, whether they're working outside the home and then working in the home, whatever. But the point of that is, I'm exhausted. To think about those little things, those little things are going to just wipe me out if I'm trying to think about writing a note to Junior and, you know.

So how do you convince yourself this is important enough that you need to do it? Well, I think we have to be intentional. I know that's a word that gets overused about being intentional. But I do think we have to. I mean, we're intentional about taking our vitamins or, you know, getting up and doing devotional or getting our shower and getting dressed. And when we're intentional about those things, if it only takes a few minutes to do some of these small things, then it is so vitally important, I believe. And I don't want it to feel like one more burden that the families, you know, that the parents have to do because we are so busy.

But we can just add some little something. And even if we don't do something every day, you know, even if it's just a couple of times a week, the children are going to look back and think, they're going to remember those things. They might not remember, oh, we didn't do it every day. But, you know, they can think back and know that they did something like that. I like that.

Well, let's get into it so people can get their heads around what we're talking about. You have many suggestions, 365 of them in the book on how to show your child love. But you kind of break them down into categories. One is showing them love outside. So give us a couple of examples of showing your kids love outside. Well, one of the ways that we found to do that, my husband is a biologist slash entomologist by trade. And so he does an amazing job of teaching the kids to appreciate God's creations and nature. And so we love to get outside and look for critters. We try to listen. We try to observe with all five senses.

You know, whether you're playing outside, if you engage with what the kids are doing and say, oh, listen to that bird, did you see that squirrel, you know, teach them to enjoy nature and appreciate nature. So you don't need a degree to do that, I guess. Oh, absolutely not. I hope not. Definitely not.

Definitely not. But then we would also, so we would just do things fun while they were playing. But then we would also be real deliberate. One of my daughter's favorite memories is having stick races every time we found a stream. And every family member would have to get a stick and it would have to be something a little short stick and it would have to be noticeably different so that we could throw it in at one end, run around to the other to see whose stick won the race. And my daughter just still thinks that was one of the most fun things. See, I'd go get a popsicle stick.

What about you, John? Well, that's sleek and good. Has a flat bottom. I'd look for something big that is. I think it would glide through that water.

What do you think? I think you'd win. Carry one around in your pocket. And then. OK.

So what's another category? Fireflies. We love to, when it's firefly season, we love to make sure we do that. We have awakened the kids in the middle of the night, early hours, if there was a meteor shower.

Oh, yeah. And we would lay on the blankets and watch for the stars to fall. We love to collect rocks and acorns just because and compare size. So jumping in puddles, playing with bubbles.

You know, they can be very little, simple memories. But if we just keep in mind to do those things rather than just be with them, but just be a little bit more intentional to do those things. Let me ask you why some parents and, you know, moms tend to be the ones that lead this challenge and I get that I would wish more dads would be that creative, engaged person.

And, you know, hopefully some dads are. But why do we struggle doing these things? I mean, this is what makes life fun.

I think it does make life fun. I think I know for me, because there were many times that I feel like all I could do was get the kids up, get them dressed, teach them a little and put them back in bed at night. So I think it's just that we're constantly thinking what we need to do next.

What's for dinner? When do we need to go to the grocery store? Does that just get overwhelming to us then? Is that the issue? It gets very overwhelming. So we don't have capacity.

I think so. I think we just fill up with that capacity. And I think we need to give ourselves grace with that.

But I think maybe we need to rethink priorities and, you know, maybe not me. I shouldn't have worried quite as much about what was going to be for dinner. I needed to be more fully engaged with the kids when I was playing with them outside. Julie, you also used to gather calendars for your children.

Now that that's funny. Why would you give your children? Well, I love to do that.

And I either purchased them or there's so many businesses that like to give away free calendars because they have logos and stuff. And I would start way back in, I don't know, maybe October or November. And after the kids would go to bed on about 20 of the days of each month, I would either put a cute sticker, write a note, a love note, just an encouragement. I think you're great. I think you're wonderful.

You're a good big brother. You know, I would just sit and while my husband and I were watching TV, I would just write, write, write, write. So it would take a while.

But this was just something I really enjoyed doing. And then that was their little New Year's Day present for each of them. They each had their own calendar.

They would hang it in their room. And most of my kids marked off each day. And it was my thought that if I had had a really busy day, and I didn't remember any way I had showed love to my children, or even if I had lost my temper that day or had just had a bad day, then when they marked that day off on the calendar, hopefully there was a note that reminded them, I love you and I love you big. I think that's great. And we always talk about how important it is for children to have their identity in Christ, right? And showing the love of God, which is what you're doing, even in winsome fun ways is so critical to their little hearts, that they feel loved.

I mean, that's job one as the parent. You did something that I thought was really unique. You know, we did the Sticks in the River race. But you would acknowledge these offbeat calendar days, like, you know, National Hot Dog Day, or whatever. I thought that was so funny.

What would you do? Well, I had the most fun collecting all of those, and I found a holiday for every day. And I didn't always give them, I pretty much did it at least five or six days a week. But I would write a note, if it was National Cheese Day, then I would write a note and I would say, I think you're great.

And of course, I spelled it G-R-A-T-E. I had pulled the grater, my cheese grater out of the pantry and put it on the table with the note. And then I probably, maybe we had grilled cheese sandwiches that day for lunch or something like that.

And in our homeschool class, I'm sure we talked about homonyms that day. But also for National Aviation Day, I, sometimes I gave them a treat. Sometimes it was just a note. So for National Aviation Day, I bought those inexpensive planes and I gave them – The little balsa wood. The little balsa wood planes.

Yeah. I had a note that said, your love gives me wings and had those planes. And then when their dad came home from work, we would go play as a family outside with those. There was another National Chewing Gum Day. I put one pack of gum and a note that said, stick with me forever.

Silly, the cheesier the better. And I remember one year, my youngest would have only been four. And of course, she couldn't read, but she loved these ideas and she knew what they were all about. And she went running to her siblings because she found at first, she said, it's happy gum day.

It's happy gum day. But you know, a lot of times it was just an affirmation of love. And the thing is, when the kids got older, they would roll their eyes with the silliness, but they loved it.

They loved it just as much. I love it. I love how you're taking something that many of us might be a little cynical about, you know, another holiday, but you're having fun with it and using it to express love. Our guest today is Julie Lavender, and you can find her book, 365 Ways to Love Your Child, Turning Little Moments into Lasting Memories at our website.

The link is in the show notes. And Julie, you alluded to something that caught my attention and that's how to be interested in what your children are interested in. And frankly, as a dad, I think we struggle with that. You know, we're interested in our things and we want to shape you into what we're interested in, like football or whatever, golf, and the kids are going, I don't like that.

And we have to adjust. It's not easy sometimes. So what recommendations do you have for parents to be in tune enough with their children's interests, not to blow right by them?

I think we can so easily do that when we're busy. And I think a lot of parents do an amazing job with it. But with having four children, two girls and two boys, they had varied interests. And so I did try to tune into their interest. And so my oldest loved horses and loved going horseback riding. And I love them from afar, but I'm just a little bit afraid of them.

And so, but I conquered that fear. And for a special day, we went on a horseback ride and really loved that. My boys loved Legos. So I made a point of either building with them, or when they get those magnificent creations that took hours, I would let them tell me about it. And my oldest son, especially, I think all my children are creative, but my oldest son especially is so creative.

He might give me a story about his creation longer than it took him to build it. But I tried to listen to every word because he was so creative. One loved baseball. Oh my, I should have been in the All-Stars with as much baseball as I played because I just would be interested with him and tried to play.

And I had to listen to the baseball players' names. My other daughter loved dance, so I would be a backstage mom for her recital. And when the daughter got older, sometimes the only way I could find time with her was to watch a chick flick with her late at night after her siblings had gone to bed. You know, something you're mentioning there, it's one of the things I regret. I feel pretty good about the things that I did as a father, very intentional. I didn't have a dad, so I wanted to be a better dad, right? And one of the things that I didn't do enough of was individual time. I think partly because I had two boys, so I didn't do a date night with my girl because I didn't have girls. So whenever I did things, we'd do it all together, like the two boys and me, whatever that might be. And I think looking back, I caught on later when they were 16, 17, then I started to do that. But that's one thing I would encourage parents, give intentional individual time.

I think so too. And you know, that doesn't have to be a lot because with our four and with your six, Jon, you know, you can't do that every week. You can't do individual with each child every week.

And that's not what we would imply at all. But even if it was one per quarter with each child, so yes, my daughter remembers that horseback ride that we went on. It was just a special time for the two of us to be together. So it's not that it has to be, we can't add too many more things to a mom or dad's plate. But to take that time does help them see that they are an individual and they're individually loved.

That's so true. You mentioned running errands can be a opportunity to do something unique with your kids. Now most people that are going to the grocery store, picking up dry cleaning, dropping off something, don't see it as a fun opportunity. So how do we adjust our thinking? Well I think that can be kind of hard. But I think if we just can kind of add 10 minutes to the day of the errand running, then maybe we add an extra stop. We get ice cream halfway through, we might have stopped at the park and played for a little bit. Or even if you don't have time for that, you know, when we get in the car we're thinking, okay, I've got to go here first, then I've got to go there and there. If we can kind of put that aside, maybe have our list over here, but in the car even play some imaginary games. We just used to love to do all kinds of imaginary things and it might be, we say, okay, we're playing an imaginary game of hide and seek.

You can hide anywhere in your Mima's house and we're going to ask yes or no questions and then we're going to guess where you are. So we use our imagination to come up with things like that, just to help that time pass by. I think that's great.

I never did anything like that. No, I really like that idea. The imagination of hide and seek. I think that's great. You know, you need no tools or utensils or anything for that.

You just use your imagination and words and communicate. Another one that was in the book that I really appreciated was playing the ABC game at the grocery store. I wish I would have thought of that years ago. Especially when you're the homeschooling teacher, then you're hunting any excuse like that, you know?

But then that's fun and that helps them arrange the groceries in the cart or help you look for it on the shelf. I was trying to get beyond asparagus and applesauce and then go to the broccoli. I'm not sure if we got every letter. Baking soda.

We found most of them. Yeah, I was going to say, what'd you put for the Z? I don't know. Zucchini.

That would work. She's good, Kim. She's practiced. Serving others together can be a great lesson for your kids. That was another thing that you mentioned. Describe how you, in essence, do the parental setup to make sure that your kids are being exposed to helping others. Well, and I think that's so important to show our kids to be the hands and feet of Jesus and to serve others.

We kind of fell into that. I didn't do that early on, but when my oldest was five years old, we took a trip to California and that was his first experience seeing a homeless person laying on a bench, on a newspaper, covered up in a tattered blanket. He started asking questions and I try to be very honest and I answered all his questions. And I said, you know, he's just having some trouble right now and I don't think he has anybody to take care of him.

And he looked up at me and, oh, it still makes me cry, he said, but doesn't he have a mommy? And you know, as much as that made me feel like, well, I'm glad I've taught him that as a mommy, I'm going to take care of his needs. It just made me realize I've got to show him we've got to help others who don't have somebody who can take care of them. So even while we were on that trip, we bought coupons at McDonald's and we handed them out to the ones that we would see. We did a few other things there, but then we just tried to do other things. We baked cookies for a women's shelter, we served in a soup kitchen and these were spread out over the children's lifetime, but worked in a soup kitchen. We rang the charity bell.

We would even do simple things like return the grocery carts to the corral if there was a wandering cart in the parking lot, we would return that to the corral, you know? And so really, I think it made an impression because my kids, they were very involved in church, we all were, and as middle schoolers, high schoolers, and when they were in college, they wanted to participate in mission trips and absolutely loved it. Also vacations, what a great time for memories. Our favorite memories are probably around vacation time, whether that was camping or whatever. Do you have some favorite vacation memories? We do have some favorite vacation times.

Because my husband was military, one thing that we did try to do, and my adult daughter actually mentioned this to me, and she said one of the things that she appreciated that I taught her was to be a tourist wherever you are. Because we moved so often, I just felt like, oh, we have to see everything we can see while we're living here, and she said that really taught her to just enjoy her own community wherever she's living, even if she's not moving. So we got to travel a lot, and we saw a lot of California and Washington and Oregon, and we just had a lot of fun with that.

But one of the things that we've noticed on our trips, even though it might be an amusement park, it might be this huge mountain we were going to climb or a big ocean we saw. But one of the things, when they were younger, we would play a game on the way home. What was your favorite this? What was your favorite that?

And a lot of times, it was the smallest moment. Speaking of those expensive park trips, we had been to one of those. I don't remember which one it was. And on the way back, I said, oh, what was your favorite part? Well, my son, this oldest creative one, his favorite part was jumping on the beds in the hotel. Now, we had just spent $500.

We spent $500. That's exactly right. And the funny thing was, we let them jump on the bed at home.

That wasn't even the issue. It was that they had two beds. They could jump from one to the other. Over the gap. Over the gap. Well, my husband and I got involved. He stood on one side, I stood on the other to make sure nobody got hurt. We put the pillows in between so they wouldn't get hurt. And we said, this is a moat. Watch out for the crocodiles.

Be sure not to get hurt. And we let them do it. We let them play. We knew we were kind of burning time at the park.

But you know what? That was fun for them. And they loved it. Yeah. And that was his favorite memory. It's so true. I can remember we first started, you know, we were kind of, don't, don't do that.

This isn't our furniture. And then eventually we came to go ahead, jump. Well, he really loved it.

It was a great memory. I want to speak to the mom and dad that maybe didn't really get this right when the kids were younger. You know, busy is busy and they're hearing this going, ah, we should have done some of this. It would have lightened the load. And now the kids are teenagers or, you know, maybe late teenage, 18, 19.

What can they do to kind of recapture some of that? Would you encourage them to get a little silly and do some fun things? I think it's still worth the effort. I think sometimes they may roll their eyes.

I think sometimes they're going, maybe even be embarrassed. But you know what? That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Yeah.

I mean, there's so much of them. My husband and I, since we've been here, we came a couple of days ago. We tried to take some selfies. I bombed horribly.

But I posted those crazy selfies. And my daughter, she's the 22-year-old, her only comment was, I thought I taught you better than that. So, you know, she wasn't embarrassed by that post.

She owned it. She was like, hey, I tried to help you and you're still failing. But you know what? They're going to roll their eyes. They're going to be embarrassed.

But you know what? They're going to be anyway somewhat as a teenager. So I think if we throw those things in there, and yes, it may look different how we show our love to that age, but I think it still can be recaptured. Again, I think we need to give ourselves grace if we were too busy, if we just didn't think about it or whatever.

But it's never too late to get started. This has been so good. Thank you so much for taking the time to write these 365 ways to show your kids that you love them.

I would encourage folks to get a copy. You can do that here at Focus on the Family, because we want you to have that kind of family that is lighthearted and loving. You know, at the end of the time of your parenting, when the kids are 18 or 19, this may be one of the best things you can teach them is how to embrace life with all of its troubles, and to do it with a smile.

And I think God encourages us to do that. So call us, get a hold of us, get your copy of 365 Ways to Love Your Child. If you can make a gift of any amount to join the ministry here at Focus, we'll send it as our way of saying thank you for partnering with us. You can call us. Our number's 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459, or stop by the show notes for all the details.

And we're listener supported. Your donations make so much difference in how we minister together around the world to help families thrive. Donate today as you can, either a monthly pledge or one-time gift, and we'll say thanks for joining the support team by sending a copy of this great book, 365 Ways to Love Your Child.

Again, our number, 800, the letter A in the word family. Julie, thanks again for being with us. This was a lot of fun. Thank you. It has been a lot.

Thank you so much. Join us next time as we hear from Alexandra Kuykendall, reflecting on a nine-month experiment that helped her learn to appreciate her life as it is. And it was that slowing down and noticing what God was doing already that allowed me to change my heart posture to one of gratitude and being grateful for the gifts that He has given me. And when I embrace those gifts daily, I'm loving my actual life more. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. Just as we pick good food for our children, we want to make sure that we're picking good and spiritual nutrition for our children as well. So I think providing them clubhouses has provided some of that spiritual nutrition for them. You can help your kids grow in their faith with Focus on the Family Clubhouse and Focus on the Family Clubhouse Jr. magazines. Get resources for your family at focusonthefamily.com slash club radio.