For more than a decade, we have been doing some form of “Special Night” with each of our children one night a week. In this podcast, I share how that tradition has morphed over the years to accommodate our growing family and why this has become such a special night for all of us!
Subscribe via iTunes HERE
LISTEN ON SPOTIFY!
LISTEN ON AMAZON MUSIC!
AND NOW ON YOUTUBE!
Resources mentioned:
Transcript
For those of you who have been following Raising Arrows for years, perhaps reading the blog, listening to this podcast, or on the YouTube channel, it is probably quite likely that you have heard me mention Special Night. Well, Special Night has been something that has been a part of our family for well over a decade now, and I want to share with you what it is, how it has changed over the years, and why it has become such a beloved family tradition.
Hello, friends. Welcome to the Raising Arrows podcast. This is episode number 167, How Giving Each Child a Special Night Has Become a Beloved Family Tradition.
Back in 2013, I found out about a family tradition that another large family had where they did something called a Special Night. Once a week, one of their children was the special night kid. They would get them a special food and a special drink. They would spend the evening with them, and all of the other kids would go to bed. This sounded like such a neat idea that my husband and I decided to implement this in our own family. Back then, our oldest child was about 14, I think. But we decided to start with the 3 year old. So even though I had one other child younger than that at the time, I decided that around age 3 was a good time to go ahead and start this Special Night.
So we started with the 3 year old and worked our way up. We decided to start with the youngest because it’s hard for them to wait. So we started with them and just dove in and then worked our way up the ladder and then started back over again with the 3 year old. And then every time the youngest got to be 3, they got to start having a Special Night as well. We just added them to the rotation.
That first Special Night, I believe he wanted chocolate chips and milk, and he read a book with us and he pretended to be a bear and crawled around the living room, and we just had a lot of fun and laughs. My oldest child at the time, he really liked to do it up right. He would play games, he would watch movies. He always chose some really elaborate food that he wanted me to make. Sometimes it was the Chocolate Chip Scones that are on my blog. Sometimes it was something he wanted me to pick up at the store. He really knew how to do this Special Night thing right, and we had a really great time. It was beautiful memories that have lasted a lifetime. My kids really, really enjoy special night.
However, as the years progressed, I found that we were needing to change up the way we were doing things. Special Night was no longer working like it had when they were all little. I couldn’t just send everybody to bed like I did when they were little. I had older kids, and the older kids didn’t want to go to bed at 6:00 so I had to kind of adjust where the older kids got to stay up and the younger kids, we’d kind of go off in a bedroom by ourselves, or when we lived in a house that had a parlor, we’d go to the parlor, and that’s where we’d have Special Night. And so that worked for a long time as well.
Then in 2019, for a very short period of time, and I’m sure we all know why this didn’t last very long. We decided we were going to take the Special Night kid out to eat. Yeah, Covid happened, and that fell apart quickly. We were thinking it would be a great way to get outside of the house, especially now that we had a lot of older kids. So, we’d get outside the house, go to a place that they wanted to eat, then come back, and they could play games or whatever it is they wanted to do. However, with COVID that fell apart, and we had to adjust once again.
What we ended up doing until 2022 was going back to the way things had been before. We just had the older kids do something else. We had the younger kids go to bed, and whoever was the Special Night kid, they hung out with us. Usually in our bedroom. We would watch something, they would play games, and that was kind of how things worked until about 2022.
In 2022, we decided to separate everybody into little kids and big kids. The big kids were now adults, and originally we were phasing them out at 18, but so many of them were still living in our home that we decided we wanted to do something to connect with those older kids as well. And when I say adults, I guess not all of them were over the age of 18, but they were getting close, and life was different for them. They had jobs. They were getting very close to graduating. Some of them already had graduated, and so we wanted to connect with them on a different level. So what we did was we kept Special Night the same for the little kids. We would, separate them out. We’d go to our bedroom, they’d watch things, they’d play games. We’d have their special food and their special drink in our bedroom. That kind of just kept them separated from everybody else. Little kids would go to bed. Big kids would do their own thing. Then when it was a big kids’ Special Night, we would take them out to coffee at a coffee shop that was open later in the evening. Unfortunately, a lot of coffee shops close super early. I guess nobody wants caffeine after 2:00pm, but anyway, we like to drink coffee all day long. So we would go to a coffee shop, we’d buy them something there. We’d come back to the house and chit chat. But having that time away from the house and away from all the hubbub gave us a chance to reconnect with our older kids, and we really enjoyed that time that we had with them.
But something was changing with our younger kids. They were getting older, and interestingly enough, they wanted to play games with their siblings on their Special Night. Apparently, Mom and Dad are not good at the games that they wanted us to play. I mean, I tried. I really did. And my husband tried, too. He’s better at it than I am. But they would want to play games with me, and I would try, and they would just laugh themselves silly at me trying to play games. They would even find games for me to play so that they could laugh at how awful I was at playing games. And then they’d be like, “Can I play with my brother? Can I play with my sister?” You know, I did not fault them for that at all, because I am not fun when it comes to games.
We were noticing that they were all wanting to play with their siblings. And then pretty soon, if we said yes to that, then they wanted several siblings to join in. And it was like this week after, and I decided something had to change with how we did Special Night. It was not the same. And that’s because our kids got older, and that’s what happens. People change, people grow. You have to adjust. You have to adapt. So we adjusted, and we adapted.
And at the beginning of this year, 2024, we changed how we did things for everybody. So what we ended up doing was creating kind of a Family Night. There was still a Special Night kid, and that Special Night kid got to choose the food and the drink for everybody. And then what we would do is spend time as a family. But the Special Night kid was in charge, so they would figure out what games we were going to play. Were we going to read a book? Were we going to watch something on tv? Were we going to play charades? It couldn’t be overly orchestrated because I don’t have the bandwidth for that, but it made it where it was okay if they were playing together as siblings. And yet there was still that Special Night kid component.
Originally, this had started as a way for us to connect as parents to our children, and we have done that and we still continue to do that. I still take individual kids out with me to different places. We still spend time sitting and talking. We still have a lot of great mom and dad and kid time. But the Special Night time has changed and it’s actually become, like I said, more of a family game night. More of a time to spend as a family with one child being the superstar of it all. And they have loved it. Absolutely loved it.
Now, back in the day when I started Special Night, I probably would have told you that I wouldn’t ever change it. It needs to stay like this, because this is what special night was meant to be. It was meant to be one kid choosing a drink and food, and then we hang out and everybody else goes to bed. And I don’t think I had the foresight to realize there was going to come a time when older people were not going to want to go to bed. I also don’t know if I realized that when my youngest was 7, things were going to be very different for us and that I would need to adjust. And so here we are, several years later, really majorly adjusting Special Night, but still loving how we do it.
So I want to share with you some ideas for creating a Special Night for your kids. I’m sure your wheels are already turning, as you’ve heard how we’ve changed things over the years. But I want to give you some pointers in how to figure out how to get this started in your family. Because I do believe it will be a fantastic tradition for your kids and for you as well, no matter how you do it, no matter how you work this out. But there are a few things to keep in mind as you figure out how to get this tradition started.
First, of all, choose a night when you are most likely going to be home. Don’t choose a night that’s a Bible study night. Don’t choose a night that is a time that you and your husband are having date night. Don’t choose a night where there is often something going on.
This is actually something that happened to us when we moved this last time. I started going to a Bible study every other Tuesday night, and I thought I could work that out where, you know, one Tuesday it was no big deal, but the next Tuesday, my husband would get it started and I would come in just a little bit late. However, I felt rushed and I did not feel very calm about it. And the funny thing is, Tuesday night had been the night we had been doing Special Night for years. And then all of a sudden I have something on Tuesday night and it doesn’t feel right anymore.
We tried to plod along with it for a while and then just decided we needed to move it to Monday. However, after doing Monday for a couple of years, I realized here in 2024 that Monday wasn’t going to work for me either, and we decided to do a Sunday night instead.
We do not have Sunday night activities at our church, and Sunday night just seemed like a really great night for us to all connect together and to continue that celebration of the Lord’s Day. And so it seemed like the perfect night and it has turned out to be a really good decision.
So when you go to figure out what day will work for you to have a Special Night, choose a day that typically is free for you and your family so that you can have the same night week after week after week.
The second thing I would suggest I already kind of touched on, and that is starting with your youngest child and working your way up to the oldest. Basically, the only reason I do this is because, number one, it’s easy for me to keep track of, and number two, little kids don’t wait well. And so I decided to start with the littlest one so that they were really excited to do this special night thing and we jumped right in with their special night.
As I said earlier as well, I also used to age the kids out at 18. It just seemed logical. But now we’ve added the people who are still living in our home back into the rotation so that they get to enjoy planning a special night as well.
Number three, on special night, if you choose to have a special night kid and that’s the only person you’re doing things with, make sure that the other children are either going to bed or occupied with something that doesn’t make the special night kid feel like they’re being left out. The special night kid is the star of the show. The other kids will get their turn.
If you do like what we did early on and you send them all to bed, I would have maybe one of the older kids make sure that they are going to bed, or maybe you need to switch off and on with your husband to make sure that they’re getting settled in. If you have older kids and you’re not doing the whole bedtime thing, just make sure they’re in a different part of the house. They’re staying quiet, they’re not interrupting. You want the special night kid to feel special.
And what I tell the kids is that when it’s your special night, you will also get that kind of treatment. So be aware of that when you are interrupting or trying to get your way or fussing or complaining – you will have a turn, and you want that same respect and common courtesy when it’s your turn.
We have always used food or food and drink as a part of the incentive of having a special night. It started out as a food and drink. They could literally have anything within reason, and sometimes it would be candy and soda. We would kind of watch how much they were having because it was in the evening, but it was something really special for them because especially in a large family, you don’t often get to choose exactly what you want until you get older and have your own money and you’re buying what you want then. So that’s one of the key components of making this special. It’s like they’re in charge and they’re figuring out what they want, and it also gives them an opportunity to problem solve and try to figure out exactly what they want to choose for that night.
I will caution you though, my oldest son liked to influence his younger siblings on what they might want to have for special night. I think it was because he was hoping that if they didn’t eat it all, he could have it. I don’t know. He edits this podcast, so if he happens to hear this, maybe he can weigh in as to why he was asking them to choose certain things for special nights. *wink wink*
And that brings me to a point that you do want the special night kid to try to make these decisions on their own. You can suggest things, but I think it’s important for them to learn to make decisions and learn to choose so that it is really their night.
One other thing we have done is have a special plate. I also have one child who has a special cup that he uses that is his own personal special night cup, like a chalice. But we do have one of those special plates. They’re the red plates. It came from Germany. My husband’s aunt picked it up and gave it to us as a gift. That is what the special night food often goes on when it’s their turn to be king or queen for the night. It’s not necessary, but it sure is fun.
Over the years, one thing about special night has never changed, and that is the fact that every single special night kid looks forward to their special night. Nobody is like, ugh, I don’t really want to do special night. In fact, they are so upset if we have to skip it because of a family vacation or because we have something else going on. Every single child loves to be the special night kid, and that has not changed in the least from the inception of special night in our family. It has been such a blessing and such a wonderful family tradition.
I hope you take the time to try it as well. I’d love to hear about any of your family traditions that are kind of like having a special night because you never know, I might have to change it again! That said, I am so glad I listened to that other large family mom and gave it a try. This is one reason why trying new things as a family is a great idea. Listening to other large family moms, checking out what they’re doing and seeing if it works for your family because you don’t know until you try it, and you don’t know if it will work until you try it. And you may have to tweak things and change things to fit your family, but building those memories, are crucial. And it is so wonderful to have these traditions that I know my kids are probably going to pass on in their family as well because it’s been such a wonderful part of our lives.
Until next time, this is the Raising Arrows podcast, your home for all things large family homemaking and homeschooling. Bye bye!
Leave a Reply