It’s pretty common to assume that you’ve got nothing in common with 7-year-old kid. They are just starting out in life and have absolutely no experience with the real world.
So, how do you bond with a 7-year-old kid? Do things with them! Doing things with a 7-year-old that they like to do is a great way to bond with them. They love to play, and they love it even more when other people play with them. You can learn a lot about your 7-year-old by doing the things they like to do with them.
You might be wondering what kinds of things they like to do that won’t leave you completely bored out of your mind. I get it, you need something you can both enjoy together. Things like listening and giving them your time would be the first way to go.
Listen
Children need to be heard, and 7-year-olds are not only smart, but they have quite a lot to say. They are at an age where they can carry on a big conversation for quite a while. Let them tell you about their day and everything that was good about it.
Let them tell you all the bad stuff too. Be patient and create an atmosphere where they feel they can trust you. It may take some time, or it may be quick. One of the best ways to bond with them is to first let them speak.
Even if your child talks for a whole hour and you are starting to get bored, you should listen for as long as you can. What your 7-year-old says will help you understand them better as a person and will help you be able to bond with them later.
Kids test whether you were listening to them or not. I did that all the time with my parents. Sometimes they wouldn’t remember a single thing. (N
Play Games With Them
When I talk about games, I mean a number of things. I’m talking board games, dressing up and playing pirates, to games which involve a lot of people like signs and things. (I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of signs.)
- Signs and other group games (For directions on how to play go to the Group Games.com website)
- Card games (Click Here)
- Board games (Click Here)
- Pirates
- Cops and Robbers
- Rapunzel (Click Here)
- House
- Master Chef Jr. (Click Here)
- Cowboys and Indians
- Capture the Flag
A lot of these games are group games, but participating in a game that your 7-year-old is in charge of, or a part of, will help them feel more connected to you. You’d be surprised what a little time with your 7-year-old can do.
If a 7-year-old feels like you will take the time to come to their level and you enjoy doing so, they will feel as though you are a friend and a parent. It’s funny, but you can be both.
Experiment With Their Ideas
Once upon a time, I was a child who made up a recipe for cookies. The recipe was completely wrong and my siblings made fun of me for it. They kept telling me that it wouldn’t work and that the cookies would be terrible.
Instead of joining my siblings in their discouraging words, my mom took the recipe and told me we were going to make the cookies. She let me help her mix everything up and she followed the recipe exactly as it was written.
Everyone was watching a movie while we cooked, but I didn’t care because I got to spend personal quality time with my mom. We mixed it, put the cookies on the sheets, and cooked them in the oven.
When the cookies were finished, my mom put them on a plate and told me to hand them out to all my siblings and my dad. I was so excited and felt so proud of what I had accomplished. I am a lot older than I was then, but that was a bonding moment between my mom and I and I’ll never forget it.
When your child talks or has ideas, listen to them and try it out. It’s a great way for you to build a relationship with your 7-year-old, and they’ll learn a thing or two.
Instead of trying to control what they think and create, praise them for their successes and encourage them to learn.
It may not make sense now, but in the future they will have a strong bond with you and you’ll be grateful you let them be creative.
Take Them Places They Would Be Interested In
If your child is interested in something, for example, dinosaurs, take them to a museum that has dinosaurs. If they love trains, take them somewhere that teaches about trains.
They may not initially recognize it, but kids (and anyone for that matter) love it when people are observant enough to know what they like.
Take your 7-year-old on hiking adventures, or take them swimming. Explore the world with them and get excited when they get excited. Enjoy that time and let them tell you all about what they find.
Sometimes parents think it’s a good idea to take their kids somewhere parents think is cool. While that’s important sometimes, it’s also important to go places your kids would be interested in.
I’m not saying you should totally ignore what you would like to do, I’m just saying that you shouldn’t just go somewhere only you would like to go.
Basically, go places you will both enjoy that will help create a connection between places that are often barred by generational barriers. There are some places that all age groups enjoy going.
Museums, hiking, swimming, exploring, or caving are all things you can do. You can have all sorts of ages doing those things; which means you and your 7-year-old have an opportunity to bond.
The ‘bonding’ takes place when your child asks you questions about what they don’t understand.
Go Through Hard Things With Them
As a parent, it can sometimes seem trivial and unimportant some of the things children get upset and distressed about. Just the other day, my niece was upset because she was tired of carrying her bike up the hill. Because she was tired, she did not put it all the way away.
The moments that I’ve felt my familial bonds becoming the strongest is when I am going through hard things and my parents are right alongside me going through them with me.
I stopped her and requested that she take the bike all the way up the hill. She returned angrily and stomped it into its place. (Even though she still did not put it into the right spot.
Instead of yelling at her and getting mad, I went to go find her and I talked to her. I asked her why she was so frustrated. She didn’t respond, but I guessed that it was because she was tired and hadn’t realized how much work it was to bike up the hill.
We talked for a while about how she could have asked me for help and explained to me calmly that she didn’t think she could do it on her own. We agreed on the fact that it’s okay to not want to do something that is hard, but hard things need to be done anyway.
It was a bonding moment because we both learned from each other and afterward, she felt better. She helped me to open my mail and it was as though the incident never happened. (Although, hopefully, the land still stood.)
When you do hard things with your 7-year-old, they get a sense of comradeship with you. You become a mentor and a guide they can count on for help.
Sometimes, you have to do hard things yourself so that your child doesn’t feel alone in their suffering- however small that suffering may seem to you.
Sympathize With Your 7-year-old
Along with doing hard things with your 7-year-old, you should treat their woes seriously. This is the first time they are experiencing some of the emotions they are feeling.
If you make fun of them or tell them their worries don’t matter, they won’t trust you in the future with more serious woes.
7-year-olds don’t have too many difficult things that happen to them, usually. But, they do have things that happen to them which are difficult for them to handle.
If you have sympathy for their difficulties and support them in their striving to overcome them, your relationship with them will strengthen.
Teach Them About Their Grandparents And Ancestors
Nothing strengthens a family bond more than talking about the past. It is always fun for kids to hear stories, but stories about people who came before them and share their blood are even more fun.
Because 7-year-olds are great conversationalists, they ask great questions and are prepared to hear stories about the past with a great ability to understand what is being said.
A bond a 7-year-old has with their grandparents will be strengthened by stories of those grandparents’ adventures they had at that same age (or as a child).
For example, I heard a story about my grandpa from my grandma about when he was little. He came from a family of ten children. This story takes place when he was about 7-8 years old.
He was raised in the depression when they didn’t have a lot of food. Because of this, there was a lot of work to be done in the fields and in the home.
The kids spent a lot of time outside. When it was time to eat, their mother would ring a bell to call them in.
However, when you are little, sometimes playing is a lot more interesting than food. Well, with my great-grandmother, you weren’t to do that. She was a Denmark Danish woman who was very robust and firm with her children.
One day my grandfather was playing outside with his siblings when his mother called him in for lunch. He didn’t respond because he was having too much fun. She called one last time but he still didn’t come.
As a consequence, my great-grandmother usually spanked their bottoms with a wooden spoon. The moment her spoon hit my grandfather’s little bottom all she heard was a thump.
She realized that my grandfather had cleverly stuffed his pants with hay because he knew he would get into trouble, with a spanking as the consequence. She laughed so hard that she couldn’t punish him at all. He went away without a scratch.
When I heard this I felt an immediate bond with my grandfather. I had tried to get out of trouble so many times, but this was too clever. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
When 7-year-olds hear these stories of these grandparents it creates feelings of comradery. They are no longer wrinkly old wise-crackers. They are wrinkly old children in disguise.
Share Stories With Them About When You Were Little
Just as sharing with your 7-year-old about their grandparents will create a bond between the two parties, it will do the same for parents. When you break the glass of the perfect all-knowing parent, kids can sometimes see themselves in you.
I absolutely loved hearing about when my mom and dad were little. I don’t know why, but my dad hasn’t ever shared much about what things were like when he was little, but my mom did.
As I sat there listening to her share about her experiences as a child, I felt connected. I remember being so surprised that my mom was once my age.
It made me happy to know that I could someday be like my mom. It was nice to be a kid, but I also wanted to grow up someday.
It may be a good teaching technique, but it’s also a great bonding tool. Kids need to know where they come from. When they understand that you made some of the same mistakes they were and are making, they feel closer to you.
Don’t Be Too Guarded
If you set yourself to far above them and try to hide your imperfections and mistakes it will always create a distance between you and your child. I am a lot closer to my mom than my dad now because she has been open with me and willing to share about her childhood.
If a parent is too guarded with who they really are, any child will feel ostricized or rejected. 7-year-olds especially crave that connection even if they don’t always show it.
When you aren’t willing to talk about serious things, or aren’t sure how so you don’t, you are losing the opportunity to connect with your son or daughter.
Even though they may not be able to understand, there are ways to explain things to them so they may grasp at least a small portion of an understanding.
Once they have a small understanding, they can build on that, and if you’re open at the beginning, they’ll go to you in the future for more.
It’s all in how you present yourself and whether or not they can trust in you. Not only are you a parent/guardian/mentor, but you are a friend.
If you approach them with that in mind, you’ll be a
Related Questions…
What kinds of toys do 7-year-olds like to play with? Anything that relates to their age group is a good toy for them. There are two articles on our website you can look at which have a list and ideas of what a 7-year-old would like. Click here for gifts, and here for things to do.
What are some good movies I can watch with my 7-year-old that we’ll both enjoy? Anything Disney or Marvel would be my first response. I don’t know why they are so popular, but kids love all of that.
If you want movies which are most appropriate, here’s a helpful article on our website.
