Eight to Twelve Year Olds

• Express love, appreciation, and concern often.
• Spend time listening and talking about your child’s day.
• Show genuine interest in your child’s friends, interests, thoughts, feelings, and activities.
• Make a scrapbook together of some of the special activities you have shared. Write stories to supplement the pictures.

• Teach your child some of the skills you possess. These could be athletic skills, musical skills, social skills, word processing skills, gardening skills, etc.
• Teach your child right and wrong ways to deal with difficult situations involving drugs, alcohol, sex, social encounters, etc.
• Teach and coach your child in ways of handling difficult social situations. Give them hypothetical stories in which you can discuss alternatives. For example, ask your child what are some of the things they could do if someone bullied them on the playground.
• Give your child opportunites to problem solve by asking open ended questions about different situations.
• Comment on your child’s academic, social, cognitive, etc. progress.
• Answer your child’s questions on their level.

• Monitor your child’s peer interactions by encouraging them to play in your house or in other supervised areas. Be aware of possible times when your intervention may be beneficial in teaching a social skill.
• Monitor your child’s academic progression as well as their development in other areas of life such as extracurricular activities, social development, spiritual growth, etc.
• Monitor the health and personal hygiene of your child.
• Monitor your child’s safety.
• Oversee the movies they watch and the music they listen to.

• Think, write, or discuss with your spouse what your thoughts, feelings and commitments were before you had your child and how they have shifted since you became a parent.
• Think, write, or discuss with your spouse about the hopes and dreams of being the kind of father you want to be. Have you in any way lost touch with some of these hopes and dreams. Why?
• Think, write or discuss with your spouse about a person in your life who you have noticed parents in a way you feel is admirable. What can you learn from their example?
• Think, write, or discuss with your spouse the memories you have of your own father. What did you decide about how you would like to father your child based on those experiences?
• Think, write, or discuss with your spouse about times you enjoy most with your child. Notice the aspects of your relationship you think you are doing right.
• Think, write, or discuss with your spouse about times you felt personally challenged in interactions with your child. What are some of your strengths from which you can draw on to better meet these challenges?
• Think, write, or discuss with your spouse about what you believe others (partner, children, relatives, friends, community, etc.) expect of you as a father. How do they differ? When have you met or not met these expectations?
• Create a story about the kinds of stories you would want your child to tell of you as their father.

• Talk to your child about their day while driving them to music lessons, sports practices, scouts, or other extra curricular activities.
• Take your child grocery shopping with you. Discuss how they determine what is the best price for a certain product. Let them weigh produce, count items, find items, etc.
• Drop off and pick up your child from their friends houses.

• Praise your child often on their specific accomplishments.
• Hug, kiss, and tell your child you love them often.
• Tuck your child into bed.

• Go school shopping with your child for new clothes and school supplies. Know their sizes, preferences, and needs.
• Make school lunches for your child.
• Share with your spouse in laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc.

• Choose an interest you and your child both share and plan activities in which you both can learn from
• Read about a shared interest together.

• Be available for bed time story readings.
• Be available when you are home from work to attend your child’s extra curricular events (sports games, music recitals, plays, school events, etc.)
• Be available to work with your child on their homework assignments, household chores, etc.
• Be available to bake cookies for your child’s extracurricular activities.

• Schedule dentist appointments, doctor’s check ups, etc.
• Plan to attend parent teacher conferences.
• Schedule dates when you can volunteer your time in your child’s classroom as a special guest with a specific skill, teacher’s aide, guest reader of stories, etc. Let your child’s teacher know of any special skills, experiences, or places you could provide tours of to enrich the topic of study in your child’s class.
• Plan outings based on your child’s interests in which you can spend time together.

• Read books to your children.
• Work together planting and caring for a garden, fixing a bike, building a model airplane, organizing the garage, etc.
• Go to the zoo, an amusement park, fairs, national parks, a nearby lake, etc. to share recreational time with them.
• Work together on community projects such as recycling, cleaning up garbage, distributing phone books, promoting local events, etc.
• Cook your favorite meal together.
• Take your child camping and hiking.
• Include your child’s friends in some of your shared activites.
• Play word games or travel games (looking for specific liscence plates, types of cars, etc.) with your child as you drive places.

• Provide your child with the opportunity to develop their skills, talents, interests, and cognitive strengths.
• Provide your child with many opportunities to help others in the community.
• Provide a warm, secure, and safe environment for your child to call home.

• Express your love for your child often through hugs, kisses, and smiles.

• Teach your child about safety in sporting activities - helmets, knee guards, wrist guards, reflective clothing, life jackets, etc.
• Teach your child what to do if they are lost, approached by a stranger, asked to do drugs, assaulted, caught in a fire / earthquake / tornado, etc. in a manner which is helpful and does not frighten them.
• Guide your child in street smart Trick or Treating.
• Teach and enforce safe street crossings.

• Encourage your child to develop their personal strengths by both recognizing what they are and facilitating growth in those areas.