My son has recently turned double digits! He’s now 10, and the time just flew by…
I think he’s had a good childhood to this point, but there are things that I didn’t get to do with him that I wanted to do.
So I thought I’d list some of my regrets:
- Playing scientist: I envisioned my son and I doing experiments down in the basement, inventing things and learning the properties of various materials. While I still might have a little time left, some of the magic is gone.
- Building a FireHouse: I always wanted to build my son a firehouse for his fire engines. I procrastinated and he got a pre-assembled wooden firestation for a present from a grandparent. I did build an additional extension that attaches to the initial structure.
- Motorcycle or Go Kart Riding: I always wanted to get my son a minibike, small motorcycle, or a go kart… But since I don’t have the land to run these, I never did this. So my son had to settle for his grandpa’s riding lawnmower and occassioinally driving my car in the junior high parking lot. We also raced gocarts at a paid place.
- Reading the Harry Potter book: I wanted to read this with my son, but life got busy and complicated so we only got to start it and it fell by the wayside. We did read a few encylopedia brown books thought!
After thinking about it, I haven’t done as bad as I thought! But the time has gone quickly! For the next project, we are going to build a fort roof for his swing (for shade).
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-MR
but the best thing is that you have memories of doing a few things with your son. Most of us did not even know what our dads looked like because all we saw was him running to the car and to work. He is just ten, you still have time to do most of the things on the list
My mom read the first Harry Potter book out loud to my little sisters and 16 year-old me would sneak into their room and listen too. My husband and I read Ender’s Game out loud to each other in college. Now we listen to audio books together on car trips. It’s not too late. 🙂
Encyclopedia Brown!!! It makes me happy that people are still reading the series. I’m worried that it will die out with my generation.
My husband can’t wait to get our son onto a 50 cc bike. I’m nervous about it of course, thankfully I have 4+ years before I need to really worry about it.
I want to read him the Harry Potter series.
Money Reasons- oh don’t live with regret. There are a million things we could look back on and wish we did over our lives.
Instead, focus on what you can do in the future. I always worried that I would miss each phase of my kid’s lives, but each phase brings something new and wonderful, and there are new things you can do.
Some suggestions:
1. Play catch or whatever sport your child enjoys after dinner.
2. Involve your kids in all repair work you do so they can get some confidence and learn themselves.
3. Play board games with them.
4. Have them run errands with you. The car is a great place to talk.
5. If your child ever asks you to do something with them, don’t put them off. They will always remember that dad would set down the paper to play with them.
6. Cook with them. (Which is kind of a way to play scientist.. 🙂 )
From the posts I read, you sound like a fantastic dad! Have fun!
Yeah! Happy Birthday to your son! My daughter just hit the double digits in May. It’s scary how fast they are growing up! And that is also reason I have allowed my life to slow down; to spend time with them doing frugal quality activities. We’ve been painting our nails, reading together, hitting the park for picnics. They are only kids once and I want to relish in them growing up. 🙂
If its any consolation, my daughter and I watch heart and other realted surgeries on TV. (I want to do the mad scientist projects, too). 😀
@kt
Yes, it’s a battle sometimes… and now that he’s older, I could do a lot more with him. Time is becoming a scarce resource.
@Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
True, perhaps I will try it again (the Harry Potter book that is).
I love audiobooks, especially when driving on vacation and for the commute to work. I blogged about it here: https://www.moneyreasons.com/2009/12/lemons-to-lemonade-series-1-long-commute-drives/
@Jin6655321
When I was in grade school, my 3rd or 4th grade teacher would read it out loud and ask anyone that knew the answer to raise their hand and guess what gave it away for Encyclopedia Brown!
I was very pleased to see that the teacher did the same type of thing in my son’s class.
Of course the money values were way out of whack even when I was young…
But they were great books!
@Mrs. Frugal
Even now, the little motorcycle I had Honda 50, was some of the best experiences I had!
I kind of regret not give my son the same experience (although the wave runners are close).
I think since my son has seen the Harry Potter movies, he doesn’t really care about the books… that’s a shame 🙁
@everyday tips
Great points, I have done most of your list (except cooking, unless scrambled eggs count).
My son got an erector set last year, and it was fun to build some of the projects with him (it took a few hours). We’ve also taken apart our broke DVD player, but suprisingly, there wasn’t hardly anything inside.
I have to wonder if you are similar to me in that at each age, you wish you could freeze aging at that level. Only to find out that the next level is as good or better?
I have to admit, I’m enjoying being a dad more that I thought. I was terrified at first.
Thanks about the fantastic dad part. I try to make it as good for them as possible. I’m also learning to be more controlled when my son or daughter does something wrong.
@Money Funk
Yes, they do grow up too quickly!
On your site, I saw the video of you walking your kids to school! I thought how cool, good for you (and frugal too, of course)…
We do have a family movie night and that’s always fun 🙂
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There is ALWAYS time for Go Kart racing! I went last year and it was a BLAST! Then we went Indoor SKydiving, and that was unreal too.
Go for it!
Money Reasons – One thing I have learned is to just let things go. For instance, my youngest was supposed to be somewhere yesterday, when it started pouring. Instead, I let them just run around in the rain and have some fun (since it had been forever since we saw rain) for awhile. I just try to sit back and let them be kids. Kids don’t have the sense of urgency adults do, and sometimes its nice to kind of be on their timeline somewhat.
You are right, we both want to freeze our kids where they are at. But, if I had done that, I would never know the wonderful other side of my kids that I have gotten to see as they have grown up. We have such a great time together. Yes, it is different than it used to be, it is still great. Fortunately, I have kids that still enjoy family vacations and such, so we all have fun together.
So, listen to the Samurai and hit the go kart place. Oh, we too love the Harry Potter audiobooks. I have listened to them countless times with my daughter while we took wallpaper down from various rooms in our house. That was a great time.
Enjoy the birthday!
@Financial Samurai
Indoor skydiving sounds great!!! I’ll have to look into that!
We do go “Go Kart” racing at a place that has that and mini-golf. It’s always a great time!
@everyday tips
I’ve been working hard at letting kids be kids. I’ve also had to work hard on not being so critical of my kids. After all, they are what matters, not the task they are doing. Now, if I could just sell this approach to my wife! She’s a little too intense around certain issues… I honestly thinks she forgets that my daughter is only 6 sometimes…
To bad, I couldn’t start from this point, the knowledge that I now have would make me a much better dad!
Yeah man.. google iFly indoor skydiving. It only costs like $50-60 bucks a person, and people start at age 3!
Don’t worry about the go-kart, you’re still giving him an experience he’ll always remember. I’ll never forget the times my dad let me drive around his work parking lot when I was 10 and the utter fear as I “zoomed” up to 25 mph 🙂
@FinEngr
I let him drive at the school parking lot when he was young enough to fix between my legs, but now that he’s 10, he no longer fixs. I’ll have to try it again 🙂
I don’t think what you do matters as long as you’re doing it with him. Some of my best memories with my Dad are fixing the car (passing him spanners), cleaning the car, mowing the lawn because I was doing it WITH him, it’s not some thing I did by myself.
@Benjamin Bankruptcy
Ah, that’s true! One of the memories that I will have with him is the building of an erector set car. It took us about 2 hours over a few days.