Add Balance to Family Life with Quality Time
In our last article, we began discussing How to Create a Balance in Your Family Life. We’ll continue the discussion in this article by addressing quality time for you and your spouse and quality time for you and your child/children.
Number One in our 5-point list was creating quality time just for you…
TWO: Create special time for you and your spouse.
Although I could write an entire book on this topic alone, I have only one thing to say: It is essential that you and your spouse have time together for a few hours each week.
Use your support team, resources, babysitters, friends and family to arrange someone to watch your kids so you can spend some uninterrupted, worry-free time with your spouse. This time together will not only save your relationship, but it can positively and significantly influence and shape you as a parent.
After all: Your kid(s) benefit when you are a happier parent!
Spend one on one time with your kids
THREE: Create some quality time to spend with one child at a time.
If you have more than one kid, it is important not only to spend quality time as a group, but also, to invest some individual time with each kid.
This type of quality time is crucial to building healthy and stronger bonds with your kids. Individual time allows you to get to know your kids better, connect with them on their own level, take the element of competition away for a little while, and learn about their personal interests, hobbies, and passions more deeply. Kids change so much and so fast over a short period of time. Parents often tell me, “It’s not enough to know who my kid is now that he’s twenty-four. I wish I had spent more time learning who he was becoming when he was developing and evolving into this young man who is an adult now.”
Kids often remember the “alone time” they spent with their parents for a long time. They value that time with one parent because it allows them to get to know you better too. Having your undivided attention gives your kids a chance to express themselves and get to know you on a deeper level. Siblings, friends, the other parent, all of these elements sometimes add “noise” to an otherwise important bonding moment.
In our next two articles, we’ll talk about:
How Important is Family Dinner Time?
Do Away With the Complicated…Simplify
This is an excerpt from my book: “Create Happy Kids”
Dr. Sherkat is a parent strategist who is available to do Parent Education Workshops, either Private or PTA Sponsored Classes.
Contact her at 425-772-6698.
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