8 Ways to Create Fond Memories with Kids

You create fond memories with kids by doing small, ordinary things together, often, and with your full attention. Reading, playing, cooking and getting a little muddy outside will beat any expensive day out, because what children carry with them is how it felt to be with you.

We know. Most days don't feel like memory-making material. There's work, there's laundry, there's someone refusing to wear socks, and by evening the most anyone can manage is getting everybody fed and into bed.

And then, years later, a grown-up child tells you their favourite memory is the night you all ate toast on the kitchen floor because the table was covered in a half-finished jigsaw. Nobody planned that. It just happened, and you were there for it.

So whether you're a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, older sibling or anyone else lucky enough to share time with a little one, here are eight simple ways to make that time count. None of them need a budget. All of them need you.

Read together

No matter your age or the language you speak at home, you can read to a child. It's one of the best gifts you can give in the early years. A technical report from the American Academy of Pediatrics notes that reading with young children supports their language, cognitive and social-emotional development, and it's also a lovely excuse to sit close for twenty minutes.

If physical books are hard to come by, start with digital ones. Apps like Amazon Kindle and Apple Books will get you going, and libraries often lend ebooks for free. For very young children, board books with textures and pictures work beautifully. Preschoolers tend to love animal stories and adventure series, especially ones starring a favourite character.

Then make it bigger than the page. Let the kids dress up and act out their favourite scene. Watch the living room turn into a zoo, a magical forest or a pirate ship. You'll be cast as the crocodile. Accept the role with dignity.

Try this: pick one book this week and read it at the same time every night. Let your child choose the next one.

Spend time in nature

If you haven't read Wendell Berry's poem The Peace of Wild Things, do. It captures that feeling of letting the world go still for a while, which matters even more if you live in a city.

We believe nature helps everyone settle, kids included, and there's research pointing the same way. A 2021 systematic review in Pediatrics found that contact with nature is linked with better physical activity and mental health in children, though most of the studies were snapshots that can't prove cause and effect.

You don't need a forest. A park, a walk by the river, or the green corner of a city balcony will do. If you have no outdoor space at all, grow something. A tray of sprouts on a windowsill teaches care, patience and the small satisfaction of checking on something every morning.

Try this: plant a few seeds together and give your child the job of watering them. Take a photo every few days so you can both see how far they've come.

Play sports (or invent one)

This doesn't have to be a complex sport, or even a real one. Make one up. Sock basketball into the laundry basket counts. The point is for kids to use their bodies and have fun doing it.

The World Health Organization notes that, for children, physical activity supports healthy growth and improves motor and cognitive development. Games also teach turn-taking, losing gracefully and, occasionally, winning a little too loudly.

If running around isn't possible for you, you can still play catch, roll a ball, or be the official referee and scorekeeper. Your attention is the part they'll remember.

Try this: invent a family game with one silly rule, give it a name, and play it every weekend.

Get creative and make a mess

Simple DIY projects with things you already have at home can fill an afternoon. Colour, doodle, or cut up old magazines and glue them into a collage. It doesn't have to be art. It just has to be theirs.

So let them make a mess, and let yourself make one too. Giving children room to express themselves, without someone hovering to fix the wonky bits, tells them their ideas are worth something.

Try this: keep a "make box" of cardboard, ribbons, bottle caps and scraps. When someone says "I'm bored," open the box.

Use technology to stay close

If you live away from a child you love, don't shy away from technology. A relationship over video is still a relationship. The American Academy of Pediatrics' guidance on young children and media puts its emphasis on parents and children using media together, rather than handing over a screen and walking away.

So make video calls interactive. With older kids, you can do activities together on screen: read a chapter, draw the same thing side by side, or cook the same simple recipe in two kitchens.

Try this: set a regular call with a grandparent or faraway relative and give it a theme, like "show and tell Sundays."

Play make-believe

When a child invites you into their world, go. Show interest, ask who you are supposed to be, and take your role seriously. It makes them feel valued, and it stretches their imagination in ways we grown-ups tend to forget.

Play isn't frivolous. An American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report describes how play with parents and peers builds social-emotional, language and self-regulation skills, and how the shared joy of play helps both of you manage stress. If you want to go deeper, we wrote about why playing matters for your own mental health too.

And for us adults, make-believe sprinkles a little magic back into the day. You get to be a dragon before dinner. That's not nothing.

Try this: next time you're invited into a pretend game, say yes, and let your child direct the whole thing.

Cook something together

Keep it simple. Oatmeal, mac and cheese, a PB&J, toast, a mug cake or a basic salad all work. The idea is to have fun together and showing kids that feeding yourself is a skill worth learning.

Be careful in the kitchen, and make safety part of the lesson: who handles the knife, why we don't touch the stove, where hot pans go. Small jobs, like washing vegetables or stirring, give little hands something real to do.

Outside the kitchen, give children small jobs of their own. Something as simple as turning on the porch light each evening becomes a little ritual they own, and rituals are where memories like to live.

Try this: choose one dish to make together every week and let your child write or draw the recipe card.

Wash a car (or a bike)

A car wash together is one of the most underrated afternoons out there. It doesn't even have to be a car. A bike, a scooter or a muddy wagon will do.

The idea is to be outside, splash some water, and get something done on your list at the same time. Soapy bubbles, a hose or sprinkler and a sunny day are perfect props for the kind of memory that gets retold at family dinners for years. Expect to get wet. That's the point.

Try this: hand your child a sponge and the official title of "Chief Bubble Officer." Then step back.

Keep the basics steady, and forgive the rest

Through all of this, try to keep the basics steady. Naptime and mealtime don't need to be rigid, but a familiar rhythm makes the fun stuff easier for everyone.

And know that we're all doing our best. Some days the game ends in tears, the cake sinks and the bubbles end up in someone's eye. That's allowed. Let it go and start again tomorrow.

We believe the memories that last are the ones where someone showed up, got a bit silly and stayed. For more on why the small moments stick, read the ingredients of happy memories.

You don't have to get it perfect. You just have to be there. You've got this.

What's a memory you made with a child that still makes you smile? Tell us in the comments.