Our Story | LIOHAN

Why Parent-Child Activities?

We invite you on this journey with us…

Like you…

We want to have deep, meaningful connections with our loved ones. Perhaps also like you, we have young (and quickly growing!) children. So we’re doing what we know. This won’t always be about parents and their young kids but for now, we’ve started on this journey to help young families:

“Just live” and have fun together
Truly bond and get to know each other and
Learn, without worrying about “am I doing the “right” thing?
Am I exposing them to the right skills so when they grow up they can be ______________ ?”

Is what I’m doing enough? Am I good enough?

We all hear this often, don’t we?
Whether from our own lips or someone else’s.

We are here to remind you: You are enough. You are everything your child(ren) need(s).

You might not always believe it. Maybe you think you should do more. Be more. But understand that you, with all the love and intent that you have, you are enough

Going Beyond Kid’s Programs

With all the activities available for kids, this one missing “option” surprised us

A lot of parents have told us they don’t know what to do with their kids.
And not just in the exasperated, throw-our-hands-in-the-air “what am I going to do with you?!” sense, either.

They don’t know what to do together.

We’ve all been there.

We’ve all “been with” our child(ren) without “being present”. With all the barriers and distractions of today, it’s become the norm for us to just let our kids “do their thing” while we do ours.

And despite this being the norm, this is not at all what we hear people say they want.

Parents want to do things WITH their kids. We all yearn to connect more but we just don’t know how to do it or what to do.

Our experience – Solving the problem for ourselves

We understand this – first hand. A few years ago we started doing this thing, where we’d take the time for one-on-one dates with each kid, separately. At the time, it was easy as we had the same number of parents and children. We’d just pair up each kid with a different parent each week.

When we took our kids out for one-on-one time, how they behaved shocked us.

If you’ve never tried this, you must. These one-on-one “dates” don’t have to be elaborate or even that well planned. In fact, we share some parent-child activity ideas which are perfect for impromptu “mini-dates”.

We’re sure you’ll see what we saw – especially if you have multiple children. During our dates, our kids are completely different people! Instead of fighting for attention (or with their siblings) each child opens up and takes in the special tone of our alone time together. They seem to mature by a few years. We get a better glimpse of who they really are and perhaps who they’re becoming. And this discovery goes both ways. It’s just the two of us, focused. Intimate. Precious.

If you doubt this, think about any adult with whom you developed a special connection. It could be your partner, your spouse. Imagine if the entire time you’ve ever known each other you spent it with at least one other person around. A third wheel. How well would you have really gotten to know each other?

One-on-One Time with Your Child is Precious

Ok, that’s great! We get it…but why these activities?

Easy! Where and how do you spend your time? What types of activities do you enroll your kids in? We noticed that people were already spending time with their children in “after school” activities but mostly just as chauffeurs (and cheering fans) waiting for the next event.

It then became a natural question: what if we facilitated fun and engaging activities for all ages that parents would actually WANT to do and get something meaningful out of?

We all wish for more time so what if we could make better use of the time we already have? And so the idea of hosting parent-child one-on-one activities as “Signature Dates” was born!

We love learning but probably not for the reasons you think

It also helps that we love learning…and it has nothing to do with academia and trying to gain knowledge to “get ahead” in this world.

We are just totally enthralled with being alive and life and the universe and all its mysterious inner-workings.(You can read our short bios here). We believe that by being awe-inspired together, by learning and doing new things together, by gaining new meaningful experiences with each other…well, that makes for some pretty cool bonding time.

Here’s a fun fact: we’re a hospitality company!

We wanted to make this easy for others. So sure, you may have found us because you’re looking for kids activities, or some different type of educational after school programs, or perhaps things to do with your kids…and we do all that.

And you, you can just show up and we’ll take care of the rest. We’ll take care of you and show you a good time.

Thanks for reading!

~ Crystal
Creator & Animateur of LIOHAN