Why One-On-One Time Is So Important

“Mom, I think Dad and I had the best conversation we’ve ever had!”

My oldest son shared this with my wife, Elizabeth, while we were out on a walk a couple of months ago. I was thrilled. What had we done to lead to this conversation he was talking about? We went out for a burger and fries. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision—this was something planned as part of our regular family rhythms. It wasn’t the first time we had planned time alone together like this. We also ended up spending over 2 hours together because our conversation was going so well.

I think the reason my son enjoyed it so much was the result of something intentional that we started doing a few years ago. I’m so thankful that Elizabeth has faithfully encouraged this habit even in the midst of a busy family schedule.

Let me back up a bit. A few years ago, my wife had a friend mention an idea to plan one date with each of our kids on their birthday day each month. For example, if the birthday was July 15, then on the 15th of every month, one of us would take that child on a date. I think this has been one of the most impactful habits for building relationships with our kids.

For all the benefits of spending one-on-one time with your kids, I’d recommend reading Kris’s excellent article.

As he points out, we should use all of the opportunities we can fit into everyday life to spend time with just one of our kids at a time.

To facilitate reaping the benefits of this one-on-one time, I’d encourage you to schedule this time each month on your calendar. Try and make sure each of your kids gets one hour with one parent each month.

Here are some specific areas that doing this has benefited our family:

1. It builds up our relationships for when difficulties arise.

The comment my son made comes right as he is on the verge of becoming a teenager. This has led to increasingly complex and difficult conversations. Regardless of age, we have tense moments with each of our kids throughout the day as we focus on training them to follow God and confront areas that need change.

Having a regularly scheduled fun time each month gives a designated time to build up the relational capital that allows us to get through the hard times. It lets each of our kids know that we love them regardless of how many times we need to correct them.

2. It forces you to intentionally put away your phone or other distractions and focus just on your son or daughter.

I struggle off and on with letting my phone take my attention away from my kids. I try to put it away and out of sight when I’m home unless an emergency comes up, but I’m certainly not always perfect in this. One thing that is easy, though, is to recognize that the world can go on without me for an hour while I spend focused time with one of my kids. This time is a treasure!

I try to look at them often and can see joy in their faces that I miss other times when life is busy—even if that busyness comes from necessary distractions like helping the other kids with homework or other needs.

3. It gives you a built-in time to check in.

You have a built-in time to truly check in and see what’s going on in your child’s heart or thoughts and direct them.

Each of us needs someone to be checking in on us. For parents, although it certainly doesn’t need to be exclusive, God has given us the primary responsibility to be that person for our kids. We need to know what is going on in their hearts. We should try to check in whenever opportunities arise, but we can be forgetful.

Having a time each month that is designated to check in can help hold us accountable to knowing what is going on in our kids’ lives. This can also be an evaluative time for me as a parent to think about how I have been spiritually leading my kids (or not) over the last month and commit to specific areas I should grow in the coming month.

How do we plan our dates?

One question that may come up as I talk about this is the cost involved. Dates don’t have to cost anything—it can be as simple as playing a game or going on a hike. They can also be inexpensive—I recently hiked with my son a couple of miles from a state park to a frozen custard spot right outside of the park and back. Sometimes we pick out a special treat at a grocery store to eat together.

We usually reserve going out for a meal as a more rare celebration (around a birthday, for example). For variety in location, we usually try to intersperse dates at home with those away from home.

From a scheduling standpoint, we recently switched from the birthday day to the nearest Saturday because we have so many things going on in the middle of the week. If you have more than four kids, maybe shoot for one kid a week.

The key is consistency. There are a lot of creative ways you can make these times special, but it’s a lot easier to plan them when you have committed to a time slot each month.

We’re not perfect in doing this, but we have started to see fruit from committing to a focused time with our kids individually each month. Even our 2-year-old daughter has noticed the fun times and asked to get in on having dates with Dad or Mom.

Consider how you could incorporate this practice into your family rhythms and reap the benefits of planned time with each of your kids!