“You get the books, I’ll get the tea,” my daughter chorused as she ran to the kitchen to prepare for our evening together. It was time for our mother/daughter date. We curled up in my bed with hot tea and books. Sometimes we each read our own books and relax there in companionable silence. This particular night she started reading a book to me.
We both love books, so it is easy to plan a date around that shared interest. But you may be wondering what else you can think of to do together. Here are 12 categories of mother/daughter dates and a few suggestions for each. Choose one each month so you can experience 12 unique things together.
Do something you both love
Go for ice cream or pizza
Bring a picnic to the park
Go roller skating
Do something you both hate
Visit a pet store and look at the snakes and spiders
Buy some work gloves and pull weeds
Buy foods you don’t like to see if you can find a recipe you like for it
Do something educational
Choose a time period and research it—then watch a movie to see how accurate it is
Go to a museum and take notes on your favorite things
Find a tutorial on YouTube and learn a new skill
Do something active
Play a sport together
Climb a rock wall
Take a run
Do something grown up
Visit a college campus and take pictures of your favorite things there
Look at apartments together so she can see how much it cost to live on her own
Do your laundry at a Laundromat
Interview people at different jobs to see what they like the best about their career
Do something fancy
Dress up in your best clothes and go out to eat
Attend the opera together (or turn on music and pretend you are at the opera)
Go to a tea shop and have a tea party
Do something outdoors
Go hiking
Look for different types of leaves and identify them
Go geocaching
Do something with animals
Try horseback riding
Go to a pet store to play with puppies and kittens
Walk your dog
Go to the zoo
Do something charitable
Volunteer together at a soup kitchen
Put together care packages and deliver to a homeless shelter
Volunteer to watch kids for some overworked moms in your neighborhood
Do something childish
Ride a merry-go-round
Bring some wax paper to the slides for a fast ride
Go to a toy store and try out the toys
Do something musical
Go to a concert together
Buy musical toys and create your own band
Borrow some CDs of different types of music and listen to choose your favorites
Do something artistic
Paint pottery
Try your hand at drawing portraits of each other
Make a mosaic
Grab some clay and start molding a farm
Now you don’t have any excuses for boring mother/daughter dates. Use these or create your own—just start experiencing life together.
Next week we will find out how to deal with something every single daughter will encounter—mean girls!
