With five children in our family, we learned early that family vacations were the number one method we had for creating happy family relationships and great memories. What we didn’t know then but understand now, is that you don’t have to take the entire family on vacation. It’s actually legal for two parents to take a child on vacation and leave everyone else at home. Totally legal, yet totally inconceivable for many families.
Two-on-one adventures and day trips are terrific opportunities to build relationships with children and open lines of communication, but they are sorely underused opportunities. Beyond the cost of a babysitter, the real reason you’ve probably never tried this is simply that you’ve never thought of it!
Disrupting Birth Order Creates New Communication Patterns
When Mom and Dad take a child on an adventure and leave the siblings at home, it throws the universe into a kind of weird tailspin. All of a sudden, the “middle child” gets an opportunity to enjoy Mom and Dad’s undivided attention. Weirdly, the youngest child gets to be treated like an adult. The oldest child, when faced with time on his hands but no younger children to tease, has little alternative but to talk to Mom and Dad instead. It’s a healthy twist to the “family vacation” that I wholeheartedly endorse–even if you have to get creative to keep the vacation quota “fair” for everyone.
A two-on-one adventure has a funny way of opening lines of communication no one has used in a while. It messes with the birth order. It messes with the known way of doing things. Mom and Dad get an opportunity to connect more deeply, communicate more carefully, and show a new volume of love and acceptance for one child.
You can even change it up and leave one of the parents at home and double up on kids. Either way, the typical hierarchy of personalities gets thrown off-balance in a threesome, and that can lead to communication patterns you won’t experience any other way–unless you have an only child. If that’s the case, you can mess with your version of normal by inviting someone else along on your vacation–a friend or a cousin for example.
Two-On-One Adventures Lay Groundwork for Improved Future Relationships
All of the reasons listed above are important, but to be truthful, one of the best things about two-on-one adventures is that they are just so unbelievably fun.
I experienced my first two-on-one vacation when I was about 10. My Dad took me and my younger sister on a weekend campout. We left Mom and all of the other siblings at home and the three of us had a memorable weekend together. Dad took us for a hike up Mount Baldie and taught us how to bait a fishing pole. We got our first experience cooking a camp breakfast without Mom’s help. The hash browns were raw and the bacon burned as a result, but I was so proud to be the chef and take on a responsibility not typically my own, I didn’t care that the results weren’t perfect.
I’m not sure how critical that experience was for creating a relationship of trust with my Dad. I do know that when I was a teenager I could still talk to him about just about anything. However, this camping trip was the first time I recall communicating with him as a “mature” daughter. By contrast, he let down his hair a little, telling us jokes as we hiked. It gave us a look at a more “youthful” Dad. Somewhere in the middle of my “mature” and his “youthful,” we connected in a new place.
The Potential Impact of Two-On-One Time
It’s only now that I wonder if this single small and simple experience helped me and Dad establish and maintain the line of communication that I needed later as a teen. I probably can’t truthfully say that it made ALL the difference since obviously, Dad did other things to make me feel loved and valued. But what I can say with some confidence is that this experience was formative for me.
Creating Two-On-One Opportunities
My youngest daughter has had an advantage when it comes to two-on-one adventures and vacations. She was the last one at home at a time when, as working parents, we had opportunities to travel to business conferences. Usually, she was invited along just because that was more convenient and less worrisome than leaving her home alone. Those relaxed trips when we didn’t have to accommodate schedules for the entire family have become priceless memories for the three of us.
But if the adventure isn’t convenient, how do you create space for it anyway? The best advice I have to offer is first, plan ahead and put an annual adventure for one child on the calendar every year. You can rotate the privilege among children. Schedule it just like you do your regular family vacation or your business trip. It’s the only good way to be sure you can make it happen. If that fails, you can try strategy 2: Be ready to grasp any opportunity that happens to fall in your lap.
Recently, we had a unique opportunity to spend 3 days camping with an adult son. His siblings were invited, but at the last minute, everyone else bailed out. Rather than canceling the trip, we decided to make the most of having an adult son join us for the weekend. The result was that the three of us had three whole days to re-connect, and lots of quiet time for talking.
We talked about everything from my son’s educational plans, to my husband’s recent work experiences, to my work on this blog. I recommend a campfire as a great place to feel safe about opening up about almost anything.
When the weekend came to a close, we were so loathe to leave that we postponed our pre-arranged deadline for having everything packed up to go home and went to the lake for two more hours of fishing instead.
Two-On-One Adventure Ideas:
Here are a few low-cost outings you can use as a starting point for planning your own two-on-one vacation or outing:
- Take a child out for an ice cream cone, or order the biggest banana split the joint offers and share it.
- Rent a 3-man canoe for a day on the lake.
- Most ski lifts will accommodate 3 people. Enjoy a trip up a ski lift for a day of skiing, mountain biking, or hiking. Or, take a bag of trail mix and just enjoy the view.
- A day at the beach can be economical and relaxing
- Take a favorite board game to the park and play with just the three of you
- Go on a mini road trip and stay overnight.
- Go to a college sporting event together. Buy your child something from the concession stand you typically wouldn’t spring for–something just for him.
- Save up for a trip to a local theme park. You’ll be surprised how often theme park rides comfortably accommodate three side-by-side riders.
- Build a fort in the basement or sleep out on the trampoline and star gaze together.
- Maybe you can’t afford an expensive adventure for the entire family but you can budget something fabulous for each child as they turn age 12 as a “rite-of-passage.” Some once-in-a-lifetime options might include swimming with dolphins, going horseback riding in a National Park, or attending a professional sporting event.
- Go to a trampoline park.
- Visit the driving range at your local golf course and hit a bucket of balls.
- Go on a bike ride to her favorite pizza or sandwich shop.
Share your favorite ideas for two-on-one adventures in the comments section below. Children of any age benefit from two-on-one time with parents, grandparents, or with a parent and a sibling. If you could let go of all of your concerns except creating a moment with your child or grandchild, what opportunities would you invent together? Post your idea below. It’s the first step to actually making it happen!
