Valntine's Day Activities for the family, kids, children

Hide messages around the house

There are all kinds of places to surprise your family with love notes, and if you include a chocolate kiss with it, their smiles will be even bigger:

Write a message with soap on the bathroom mirror

Write with lipstick or window paint on the tiles in the shower

Write a note on the toilet paper

Write on post-it notes all over the house--in dresser or desk drawers, in cupboards, on the cereal box, on the newspaper, in the TV guide

Put a note in the pockets of their jackets

Put a note in her lunch bag (girls seem to like this, but boys will die a 1000 deaths!)

Put a note in their shoes

Put on note on their pillow

Put another note under their pillow

Put a note on the T.V.

write it in m’n’m s

Send an e-mail or facebook message

Text a cellphone message or leave a voice mail

Hang a note from the rear view mirror of the car

Tape a note to the steering wheel

Put a note on the back of the bedroom door, so when they close the door they see it

Date your kids

Make it a point to spend some fun time with each child sometime during the Valentine season. It doesn’t have to be long or time consuming, just something that you both enjoy. What kid wouldn’t love to go to an ice cream parlor? Younger children might be just as happy playing cars or dolls with Mommy. A school age boy might think it was the funniest thing in the world to race his mom in a video game, and what satisfaction to beat her! A little girl might love to pretend to be a big girl and have make-up put on her. There are so many options that I can’t possibly begin to list them here, but you know your child best--you will come up with something fun!

Tell your children stories about your courtship

Children love to hear stories about their parents, especially if they haven’t heard them before. Spend supper telling them some of the stories of how you met and fell in love, and knew this was the right person to marry. It will make your children feel secure in knowing you love each other, and give them a good example of what to do when they get older.

Look at your wedding photos or video with your children

If your children have never seen your wedding pictures before, they will be enthralled. Telling about the pictures might help you remember parts of the story that you have forgotten, or didn’t think to tell your children before.

Help you children put on a skit about your courtship

After your children have heard your courtship stories for several years in a row, they may be tired of hearing them. So get them to put on a skit for you.

Ask your children to make you a valentine dinner

They can fix a simple meal with some help and a lot of coaching. But at the end of they day, it will be a special memory for everyone involved, so be sure to take pictures! It will give them all a sense accomplishment, and a better understanding of how much trouble you go to for them every day!

Ask your teens what kind of spouse they want to marry and why

Valentine’s season is a great excuse to have some serious conversations with your children, and it will be so much easier to start the conversation with hearts, candles and chocolate everywhere. There are many non-threatening topics you can use to start the conversation. You can talk about mistakes you made and how they might avoid stumbling into the same pitfalls, or talk about movies and all the good examples of bad strategies to avoid! Or talk about conversation hearts as you eat them, laugh about absurd situations they might use them in, then make up ones they could actually use.

Play Tic-Tac-Toe, or Checkers with heart shaped chocolates

Use any excuse to let your children know you love them. They will enjoy playing a game with you, but they will have especially fond memories of you if they get special treats mixed in with those messages of love.

(for more game ideas, see valentine games)

Jelly bean or m’n’m centerpiece

To encourage your children to verbalize words of affirmation, Put candy in a jar or bowl in the middle of the dinner table. Each time someone says something nice about another person, let them take a candy from the bowl. Yes, they will go to extreme lengths to get the candy, but it will be a fun, funny way to teach them a lesson that will hopefully linger beyond Valentine’s day. Allow anything as long as it is affirming--you want them to get as much practice as possible--it’s something you want them to become good at! And even if they are being silly when they say it, it will be easier to say it the next time when they are in earnest and there is no reward.

Make Cootie Catchers

Remember these from when you were in elementary school? This time, help your children make several and fill them with instructions to kiss, hug, and tickle for plenty of excuses to show your children physical signs of affection. Since they look a bit like flowers when these are folded, they can be included in a cookie/candy bouquet.

view how to make a cootie catcher

view cookie bouquet

“Because I love you” heart

Start this during the valentine season, but then keep it going all year round, and see the goodwill grow in your family. Make a heart--it doesn’t matter what it is made out of--paper, foam, felt, etc. Glue a magnet to the back so you can keep it on the refrigerator. Do your child a favor and leave the “Because I Love You” heart where they will find it. Encourage them to use it to pass on a favor to another person so random acts of kindness get passed from family member to family member. If it is slow in catching on, lead by example. If your child fails to make his bed before going off to school, make it for him and leave the heart. Obviously if you do this every day, he will fail to learn responsibility, but if on a rare occasion he slept late and didn’t have time to make it, a favor speaks far louder than a punishment! We have used this idea for many years, so I am sorry to say I do not remember the source of this idea--if I run across it one day, I would like to give credit where credit is due.

Favor Key

This is similar to the heart mentioned above, except that you can ask for a favor once you have done a favor for someone. This encourages your children to lend each other a helping hand, especially if they know they can ask Mom or Dad to help them with something in return. For this idea, as well, I regret that I do not remember the source to give credit for it. You can use one of those keys that you can’t remember what it locks, or cut one out of felt or foam.

Make Mailboxes

Give each child an empty shoebox along with contact paper or wrapping paper and card making supplies. Let each one decorate their own “mailbox” so that when everyone starts making cards, they can deliver them to the recipient. At the appointed time, everyone can get their cards out and read them. Store these mailboxes with your valentine decorations, or make a new ones every year. If a shoebox is too big to store, let them each decorate a large envelope or canvas bag.

Make up a hand signal

When I was growing up, whether we tapped it or squeezed it, our secret signal meant, “I love you” without saying a word. It was 4 long, then 3 short--a squeeze for each syllable of, “I love you so very much.” You can make up your own, if this one doesn’t suit. At first, say the words as you squeeze or tap. After that, they don’t need to hear the words to understand the meaning, and when THEY are the ones squeezing the message, it is pretty special.

Read the True Story of St. Valentine

This is a sweet story, and worth teaching your children--that Valentine’s Day really did start with an act of kindness, and not a message passed between lovers, or chocolate given to a boss. True love is being kind to others--particularly when they don’t deserve it! No one can do it without God’s help. The good news is, that is what Jesus wants to empower us to do--all we have to do it follow Him, and He will enable us to live that way every day.

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