9 Ideas for Valentine’s Fun and Connection

Valentine’s Day is nearly here! What a great opportunity to take a few moments to foster those positive childhood experiences that create connection and build resilience in our children’s lives. Over the years, my family has explored a lot of different ways to have fun with this mini celebration of love and togetherness, some of which are shared below. Remember, the most important element of these activities is your connection with your child. If something calls out to you and feels fun and manageable, you might want to try it! And if now is not the right time, you can keep the idea in your back pocket for that perfect moment.

Homemade cards. By far, our longest-standing Valentine’s Day tradition has been making cards for friends, family, and neighbors. We love drawing with crayons on small cards and then painting over the wax with watercolors to really see our message pop. Over ten years, our process has evolved into an assembly-line production scene with each family member working on their favorite part of the activity. And everyone loves getting our hand-made creations. Fun and double fun!

A new favorite is stringing up strands of Valentine colored paper hearts. These are easy to make and oh-so-festive.  Crafting is great for kids’ development and you can tailor their participation to their developmental stage. To make the hearts, just cut strips of paper, fold in the middle, bend the opposite ends inward, and staple, glue, or clip! Then you can make holes in the top and bottom and string them like beads.

We learned through trial-and-error that it’s important to wrap the string around the holes to support some of the weight of the hearts. Otherwise your strands will turn into smashed hearts on a string! Who knew paper could be so heavy!?

If you have time and bandwidth, it can be really special to get up a little earlier than usual to share a Valentine’s Day breakfast with your kids. I love the idea of gathering together to have a bonding breakfast before the rush of the day. And it turns out that toast is very versatile when it comes to Valentine’s decorations, from simply scraping heart shapes into the toast, to cutting out a heart-shaped hole and frying an egg directly into it, while slathering the heart-shaped cut out with red jelly, to decorating with peanut butter and jam.

Again, the important part of this idea, is connecting with your child. Your food décor could be a single raisin heart lovingly arranged on top of their oatmeal (a simple act that brings so much joy!).

Valentine’s Day is a great day to talk about feelings. Why is it important to be able to recognize your own feelings? And other people’s feelings? How does it feel when you know you are loved? What does it mean to be kind? How do you feel when you give or get a compliment? You might encourage your kids to compliment one person outside of your home today.  

Most of my kids have gone through a phase when they liked to dress us up in matching clothes for the day. I love the idea of reviving this celebration of connection on Valentine’s Day. You might enjoy a Valentine’s theme, or perhaps something subtler.

Either way, this can be a great way to bring attention to the bond you have with your child. Maybe the whole family would like to get in on the twinsy action.

Have fun making your own Valentine’s cookies. And maybe sneak in a little language practice while you’re at it! Cooking with kids has many benefits and the sweet smell and warmth of the oven may inspire you to start your own family hygge tradition.

With kids, exercise can be really fun. And you only need a few minutes to get your blood pumping, which not only strengthens the heart but also supports your immune system and helps brains grow. I love having my kids make silly movements while I copy them. We all end up in fits of laughter and get a surprising amount of exercise in the process. My daughter and I have also had fun with this 10 minute family cardio workout that we found online.

Make a playlist of danceable songs your family enjoys, or start with just one song. Learning to move unselfconsciously is a gift best given in childhood. Family dance parties have been a staple in our house for a few years now and I have been amazed at how much easier it is for my kids to dance than it was for me as a child. If your family already dances together, you may want to have a mini-dance party on Valentine’s Day. And if this isn’t something you’ve tried yet, Valentine’s Day could be a great chance to give it a try.

This simple activity can be done with your kids or as a surprise before they get up in the morning. This could mean heart decorations stashed all over the living room or their bedrooms, or even something like a treasure hunt, depending on how much time you might have. What I love about paper heart decorations is that it’s easy to make a lot of them all at once by putting several papers together, folding in half, and then cutting one half of the heart along the fold for perfectly symmetrical hearts. Simple, cheap, and sure to delight young and older alike.