Your little brother remembers every “next weekend, I promise.” Every single one.

Children keep an accurate ledger of postponements, because waiting is most of what they do. Each rescheduling looks minor from the adult side, where the calendar really is full, and from the younger side it reads as a ranking. They seldom complain about it, which is exactly what makes it easy to keep doing without noticing.

Instead of promising a big future outing, offer something small and certain this week, an hour that will definitely happen. Put it somewhere you cannot forget it. Then keep it exactly as promised, because the keeping is the whole point.