The modern parent
Modern parents need to juggle a hundred different roles, worker, cook, and housekeeper to name only a few.
We may work long hours or work on the weekends. We may have a demanding job that requires us to bring work home. We also may find ourselves slaves to the household on the weekends, doing laundry and cleaning up the mess from the week. It’s easy to get bogged down by daily tasks and feel like we barely even have time for ourselves.
However, it is extremely important to schedule recurring quality family time with our children.
It’s true that we probably do spend a lot of time with our children, especially when they are younger. But, if the majority of the time spent with them is driving them to after school activities or watching TV together, then the time spent isn’t really quality time.
Quality time together tells our children that we care about them, and has also proven to be beneficial to kids’ development and their happiness
What is quality time?
It’s best to try and schedule time at least once every week, even if it is only an hour, when we give our children our undivided attention. That means not checking our email on our phone or letting our children play on theirs. Quality time can be spent doing something our kids love like playing together in the backyard or setting up a favorite board game on a rainy afternoon.
Even something as simple as sitting down together as a family to eat dinner is important time spent with our kids. Spending time with our younger kids before bed, reading a story or talking about their day at school, is also time well spent.
The benefits of quality time
Quality time together tells our children that we care about them, and has also proven to be beneficial to kids’ development and their happiness. Here are 3 amazing benefits that we can ‘magically’ achieve by just spending reoccurring, scheduled, one-on-one time with the kids –
- Less Behavior Issues
Children who spend quality time with their parents are less likely to have behavior issues within the family and at school. We will probably have fewer arguments and family fights will be less severe if they feel that they are loved and respected members of the family. Happy, well-loved, and well-adjusted kids are also less likely to have problems at school in terms of disobedience. Kids are also statistically less likely to engage in risky behavior, including drug use, when they spend quality time with their families.
- Mental and Emotional Health
Kids need to feel loved and cared for. Parents need to be truly present in their children’s lives and the best way to do this is to spend time with them on a regular basis. It’s not enough to only be there for important occasions or crises; children need love and attention on a regular basis to become mentally and emotionally strong individuals. Kids learn how to interact with others based on what they see at home. It’s crucial to not only tell our kids we love them, but to actually show that we do. The easiest way to do this is to spend quality time together as a family.
- Physical Health
Studies have shown that spending time with our kids can actually improve their physical health as well. A study published in Pediatrics journal concluded that poor quality mother-and-child relationships early in life, for example the mother not comforting the baby enough, resulted in a 2.45 times higher risk of obesity for the child (Anderson et al).
Family meal time will also help to keep our kids healthy. Having them help prepare dinner is a great way to include some family time together, while teaching them the value of having a healthy lifestyle. Eating together will keep our children from snacking too much or eating unhealthy foods at home.
Conclusion
Overall, quality time spent doing something the whole family enjoys is much better than quantity time spent together where we don’t really interact with each other. It is up to us to help our children grow into well-adjusted individuals, and it’s as easy as spending some quality time together.
References:
Anderson, S.E et al. “Quality of early maternal-child relationship and risk of adolescent obesity.”
Pediatrics, Jan 2012, 129(1): 132-40, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22201144.
Accessed 31 Oct 2017.
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