Studies show that once your children become teenagers, their friends become their confidants and their mentors. Therefore it is very important to strengthen your mother-daughter relationship by establish good communication and trust before they become teenagers. That is why weekly or monthly mother-daughter dates with your tween are so essential.
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Get To Know Your Tween
One way to strengthen your mother-daughter relationship is to get to know your tween. Even though, you may think that you know your daughter pretty well, yet kids interests and friends change so often that there is always something new on the horizon. That is why, it may be a good idea to have an activity where or perhaps ask your tween to make a list of 10 things that she is most interested in and that bring her joy.
Come Up With Date Ideas SHE Will Enjoy
Once her list is completed, it is time to come up with some creative dates. Both of you can sit down together, grab 10 strips of paper, and write down 10 things you would like to do together based on the things she enjoys.
Once this step is completed you can read each date idea out loud to make sure that you don’t have the same thing written twice and that she likes all the ideas. You then fold the papers and put them into a jar.
Schedule Weekly or Monthly Dates
The more often you connect with your daughter, the easier it will be to strengthen you mother-daughter relationship. But the reality is, not all of us have time to go on weekly ‘dates’ with our children. So decide on what works best for you.
You could decide on doing something special together every Wednesday. Or perhaps making time for this special outing every second Tuesday of the month would work better for you.
To make your date night obvious and special, give your tween some markers and get them to write ‘Mommy & Me Date Night’ on the family calendar so that both of you have a visual reminder that your date is coming up soon.
Planned vs Surprise Date
Then, only one question remains: should you pick out the strips with your dates at that moment and write down on the calendar where you are going for the next few dates, or should you leave the papers in the jar and pick one out on the day of your date?
You can decided to do both. You can pick out a few pieces of paper and write out what you are going to do on every second date. Then, under the remaining days you can write down SURPRISE DATE. For those days you can pick out the strip from the jar on the day of your date.
Date Ideas to Strengthen Your Mother-Daughter Relationship
Your daughter may enjoy reading, drawing, painting, manga, Nintendo video games, crafts of all sorts and many other things. I bet you will be able to come up with a ton of ideas to strengthen your mother-daughter relationship.
But to get you started, here are some of the ideas my daughter enjoyed.
1. Going to paint pottery at the ceramic shop. (I got a great two-for-one coupon on Groupon for this one)
2. Grabbing a hot chocolate at Starbucks attached to our local bookstore and going in to find our new favorite book, and of course, picking it up for our summer reading.
3. Going to a local coffee shop with WiFi and learning more about some of her favorite YouTube channels and Podcasts
4. Taking a cupcake decorating class at our local Michael’s. This also involves making two dozens of cupcakes, which we can do together as well.
5. Going to a local art museum together.
6. Going for ice cream tasting at one of our favorite ice cream shops.
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7. Spending an evening at our local library.
8. Taking a drawing class together.
9. Window shopping at our favorite craft store.
10. Going for a walk at our local marina, watching the yachts coming in for the night and chatting.
11. Pastry shop hopping. Going to at least three pastry shops in the area, picking up a treat in each and coming home to share them with other family members.
12. Visiting a used book bookstore.
What About You?
Do you have a tween in your home? What do you do to build trust, to keep open communication and to strengthen your mother-daughter relationship? Share your ideas in comments below.
This is such a great idea. So many parents have no idea what is going on in there kids lives. These are great date idea.
Quality one-on-one time is always good for strengthening the parent child bond. Great ideas!
You’re so right! And it doesn’t have to be planned or expensive. Even snuggling with your little one at night and sharing stories from the day (for example) is a great way to bond 🙂 Thank you for stopping by!
I love this idea and will definitely use this when my kiddos get older. What fun memories you are making with your daughter!
Thank you! And I truly am looking forward to our next date and making more memories 🙂
What a cool idea, i love that you did this! She is so lucky to have a mom who cares so much about her interests and what you can do together based on that. All of these sound super fun and I would love to do them!
This is a fantastic post. Really informative and helpful
Thank you so much!
We’re not quite at that stage yet. You have some great ideas here. Definitely saving for future reference.
You will be surprised how fast this stage will come. I remember changing diapers and now we’re getting pedicures together, lol! Enjoy every moment with your little ones!
I totally get this post. My mom and I have always gone for mother daughter dates shopping, music concerts, etc and this helped strengthen our bond immensely!
You are very lucky! I’m so glad to hear that it had a very positive effect on your relationship. I hope it will strengthen my relationship with my daughter as well 🙂