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One, only one activity each weekend with my daughter, in the week she stays at my place (every other week she stays with her mother), is one of the strategies I defined in my 10years plan in the category Parenting. Sounds easy right? Why is it so hard for me to do then? Why does it drain my energy, and why do I feel I have to take all the action to think of activities we can do together?

Part of it, is making the comparison with my own childhood, growing up in the eighties, when we played outside all the time, and I only came home to my family to eat and to sleep. Skateboarding, playing football and basketball with friends, and so on. Never a dull moment as I remember. And playing with your parents was just not something you did very often, at least I didn't.

How different are things now. Instead of outside, kids like to stay inside, behind the playstation or smartphone. Even though she likes to paint, play with friends, and to read books, the smartphone is too much of an addiction, and honestly - how bad this will sound - sometimes it's easy for me to let her be with her youtube friends, so I can do stuff I like to do as well.

So, can I turn things around and actually do the one activity with her, we both enjoy without our smartphones? YES. Because it's all about consiousness, I figured. It's the ability to forget about all the things I want to do with her and instead focus on all the things she wants to do with me. And once we're in that state of mind, I found out that she forgets about the smartphone, and gets energysed almost instantly.

And when she is happy, I am happy, easy as that. So, today we came up with a list of activities she wants to do with me when she's with me. And today we went swimming in the morning, and made a banana cake in the afternoon. Baking a cake is not one of my favourite things to do, but it's not about me! It's about her.

Of course, it's my job to provide the safe haven for her, providing a clean house, comfortable bedroom, healthy food, good sleep, nice clothing, and set the example by following the same core values as I preach. And within that safe haven, to encourage her to try new things, experiment, to take action, to make many mistakes and learn from them, to fall and to get up again.

But I'm not the one who says what she should do, and also not what we can do toghether. At least, not on the short run. Maybe along the way we can discover stuff we like to do together. But for now we do what she wants to do, and I'm absolutely fine with that.