Away to discover the child

Spending one-to-one time together apart from the rest of the family is an essential principal of healthy parent-child relationships, says Steve Covey in Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families. Any quality time together is sufficient: a walk in nature, a lunch out, a shared hobby. But I decided to go for broke with my nine-year-old recently, by bringing her to London.

Organising the two-night break was easy on the web: Ryanair.com had round-trips flights to Gatwick (easiest access to London when travelling with a child) for less than £100 each. We stayed with a friend, so accommodation cost nothing. We got Wednesday matinee tickets to the amazing and unforgettable Lion King at the Lyceum through www.firstcalltickets.com - despite the fact that the show is booked-out for months. After that, London's museums had a thrilling array of child-friendly exhibits and because we travelled mid-week, queues were either short or non-existent. We saw the life-size, moving, roaring T-rex in the new Dinosaur Gallery at the Natural History Museum (adults £9 sterling, children free, www.nhm.ac.uk); next was the terrifying shark tank at the London Aquarium (adults £8.50, children £5, londonaquarium.co.uk); then we saw the equally creepy exhibition of Eqyptian mummies at the newly revamped British Museum (free). There are enough weird modern art experiences to keep a child speechless at the awesome new Tate Modern (most exhibits free), with its viewing galleries of the London skyline. We mostly used the underground, but when travelling with a child money spent on cabs is well worth it: splurge on a taxi ride past Buckingham Palace, around Trafalgar Square, past Downing Street, then by Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and you'll be rewarded with wide-eyed appreciation.

Eating out was cheap: we stayed in and ordered in pizza the first night. Next night we had noodles at Wagamama for less than £10 a head and one day we had lunch at Yo Sushi - where children eat free. We arrived home with a refreshed relationship and lots of happy memories.