Dads — Celebrate Your Wins With These Five Family Outings

From ice cream outings to knocking down pins, a simple family outing is a great way to celebrate the wins that deserve to be celebrated.

Dads, we should celebrate more than we do.

Big wins. Small wins. It doesn’t matter. Dads deserve to celebrate more wins!

I’m not talking about sports wins. Generally speaking, we know how to celebrate our favorite teams and the historic athletic performances of our favorite athletes. Suppose the Pacers ever win an NBA Championship. In that case, you better believe I will be on the first flight to Indianapolis to celebrate a bunch of players who’ll affectionately refer to me as “that one guy with glasses who was crying a lot.”

We know how to celebrate, but do we know who to celebrate? That, my friends, is one of our biggest opportunities as dads. To genuinely, excitedly, and passionately celebrate our wins.

An easy way to celebrate is by planning a family outing.

It doesn’t have to be big and expensive. You know your kids don’t care about that. But an A+ spelling test deserves a night out. And you know what? Maybe a C+ deserves one, too.

What about scoring their first basket? Or how about a selfless act on the playground when they thought you weren’t watching?

Are we giving out participation trophies for every little thing? Of course not. Sometimes a “Hey, that’s awesome, buddy!” is more than enough. But if I struggle to find the middle ground between never celebrating our wins and too much celebrating, I’m unapologetically leaning heavily into too much celebrating.

Whether it’s your kid's win, your partner’s win, or especially your win, put your modesty aside and celebrate!

Here are five family outings you can start with:

A visit to your local ice cream shop

The guy who makes ice cream and wrote a book about ice cream is suggesting we visit an ice cream shop to celebrate family wins. Yes! Kids love ice cream. Who doesn’t?

Sometimes it’s best not to overthink it. $20 at an ice cream shop goes a long way. It’s easy, relatively cheap, and is almost guaranteed to put a smile on everyone’s face.

Celebrate more wins with ice cream. Keep it simple.

A picnic in the park

Sometimes a change of scenery is all you need. Picnics are fun because you eat what you already would have eaten, just outside.

All you have to do is get a blanket, find a nice spot at the park, bring food, and enjoy! If you want to go all out, search “picnic ideas” on Pinterest and go to town. But to celebrate a win, simply transporting your meal to a picnic outside is enough to feel special.

Bowling with your family

I don’t know what it is about bowling, but kids love it. The concept of throwing a heavy ball into a bunch of pins is so simple, yet it works almost every time. There’s competition if you want it, traditional pop music, below-average food, and often an arcade (Dance Dance Revolution, anybody?).

Bowling alleys are wildly underrated kids' destinations. If you’re most families, it’s also not a place you spend a ton of time, which is why celebrating any kind of win at a bowling alley is a great family outing.

A visit to the theme park

This one is a little more cost prohibitive than the rest, but big-time wins sometimes call from big-time celebrations.

Of course, there are different levels of theme parks. You could go the Disneyland route or keep it simple by visiting places like Train Town in Sonoma, one of our family's favorites.

Whichever direction you choose, celebrating a win with a ride on a rollercoaster or some packaged cotton candy just feels right.

Dealers choice

Sometimes we have these great ideas that make sense to us, but what makes sense to our kids? If we want to celebrate their successes, why not let them choose the prize?

Now, this could go a couple of different ways. For example, my daughter once got an A+ on her spelling test, so when we said she could choose her reward, she said, “A trip to Africa.”

Put a few parameters in place or set a dollar amount, but you might be surprised by what they pick. Most importantly, they’ll feel celebrated, and our kids deserve to feel celebrated.