Time With Your Kids {part 2}

Yesterday I shared my concerns about the quantity versus quality debate in regards to the time spent with our kids.  My point was that this really shouldn’t be a debate at all.  It is not an either/or question to be answered.  Time, both in quality and quantity, is vitally important to raising children. 

I encourage you to be honest with yourself.  Think through your day and your week and add up how many hours a day you are actively with your kids. What I mean by “actively” is that you are engaging in play, conversation, or some other activity with them.  Being in the same room doesn’t count (though it definitely doesn’t hurt!) Intentional, active engagement with the kids is the goal. It is quantity PLUS quality that truly matters!

If you are like me, you might be surprised.  I used to hear myself say to my husband, “But I have just spent 13 hours straight with them!”  However, the Lord really convicted me of that lie.  Although we might have all been awake for 13 hours and all been under the same roof, I wasn’t truly with them for that time.  When I took an honest look at my typical day, I realized that the number of hours I was spending time with my kids was much lower than I had thought.  I made some major changes in my life and although I have still have a long way to go, things are definitely improving.

Now before I go on to share some ways to increase quantity and quality of time with your kids, please understand this: I do not believe that mom (or dad) has to be with the kids every moment of every day.  I strongly believe in the need for kids to be allowed to play independently, without a parenting hovering. The imaginations and creativity of kids, when left alone, is often astounding. Just today I was surprised with a “meal” of Oreos with fresh flowers, doilies, and a beautiful card made by the kids. The trick is a delicate balance of mom interacting with her kids and mom allowing her kids the room to grow wings.

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And now, here are some ways to add more QUANTITY of time with your kids:


If you work, regularly evaluate the need of working and how it affects your kids.  Some women work because it is the only way food is going to be on the table (and believe me, I have been one of those women.  I always worked from home, but it was still work.)  Other women work because it means a bigger house, nicer clothes, and fancier vacations.  There is a difference. If you are working simply for “more stuff” ask yourself if those extras will be worth it when your kids are grown. Do you really want to sacrifice time with your kids so you can afford to redo the living room?


Cut out some activities.  I am amazed -- sometimes even shocked -- at the number of outings and activities that some families are engaged in. Even homeschooling families are often so busy running from co-op to co-op and lesson to lesson that I have to wonder “Are they ever really home?”  Look at your weekly schedule and see how many days/nights a week you have something scheduled.  It may be good things like church activities, lessons, and visiting with friends, but understand that each of these activities, no matter how great they are, are taking away time you could be together as a family.  Does your child really need to be taking lessons in three different things?  Do you really need to go to AWANA, a Bible study, and a Sunday School get together every week? Find out how many nights of the week are filled with practices and other engagements.  I don’t like to have more than two scheduled nights away from home.  One of those is date night (just me and the hubby) and that leaves us one more that is available for other things. We had to cut out some valuable things in order to achieve this, but it is worth it for the time we are able to be together.

Eat meals together.  As someone who grew up having family dinners every night (and some years we even had family breakfasts), I was shocked to find out that this isn’t always the case.  I remember a few years ago being at someone’s house for dinner and the mother told the seven year old daughter to put the plates on the table.  The girl walked into the living room and set the plates on the coffee table in front of the TV. Her mother, embarrassed, said, “No, honey, on the table where we eat.”  The daughter exclaimed, “This IS where we eat!” Obviously that young girl was not used to eating a meal together around a real table. Meal times can be a great way to talk, share, and just be together. We have some funny moments around the table (like last week when Levi declared to us that his mouth was magic because food goes in it and then the food comes out the other end)!  It is also a great time for correcting and training in manners, respect, and listening. Just think, if you add in regular dinners around the table every night, you could add a minimum of three and a half hours of family time every week. Add in the extra benefits of family meals and you’re on your way to great amounts of together time.


Turn off the TV! Unplug, cut the cable, and actually DO something together.  Watching TV, while relaxing and perhaps entertaining,  is not actually spending time with your kids.  Sure, you may be in the same room but you are not interacting and engaging one another. TV is also a major time waster, as kids are left to watch hour upon hour of shows or while mom spends her afternoon catching up on her soaps, nighttime dramas, or reality shows. If you made some hours in your day (or days in your week!) set aside for “no TV” you might be surprised at the time that is freed up for real togetherness.

Turn off the computer.  Believe me, this is my biggie.  I have a love/hate relationship with this machine of mine. It provides me with many wonderful things, especially since I live overseas and this is how I connect with family and friends, but really, it is my biggest time waster and my biggest energy drainer.  There are some days that I just have to turn it off -- and leave it off -- so I can focus on my family.  I encourage you to be honest about the amount of time you spend at the computer.  If you are like me, “Just sitting down for a minute while I check email” can easily turn into an hour.  And then I have the audacity to be irritated when the kids need something. Computers and the internet have their place and their benefits, but they can rob you and your kids of many hours together.

Let your kids work alongside of you.  As mothers, we have a huge load to carry.  Cooking, cleaning, shopping, organizing, driving, appointment making...the list goes on and on.  Each day there are many things that need to be accomplished.  Why not let your kids be a part of them?  This is especially important with younger kids.  They want to help, they want to be with you.  I know it takes longer with their “help” but allowing them to be in the kitchen while you cook dinner or letting them sort the laundry provides what amounts to many hours of time together as well as great opportunities for teaching and training. 

A recent hike at a volcano a few hours from our house

Get out of the house.  Although I tend to shy away from lots of scheduled events and “must do” activities, I am all for excursions out of the house as a family.  I know that for our family, if we hang around at the house (especially on the weekends) I tend to find myself at the computer and Jason tends to find himself fixing stuff around the house or getting other stuff done.  But when we get in the car and go somewhere, the distractions of email and the never-ending to do list are gone and we can just focus on being together.  Take a walk, drive to a part of town you have never seen, or check out a new playground.  All of these are great ways to spend more time together.

Limit time with friends.  I am realizing that as my kids get older, they desire to spend more time with friends.  However, this is an area I want to be really careful in. Time with friends means time away from family.  If your kids are spending all day at school and then all afternoon with friends, you are losing out on some important hours. As much as the time with the kids being occupied is nice for us moms, we really need to guard the hours they spend with friends.  If you want the bulk of their training and learning to come from you, then you need to be the one they spend the bulk of their time with.

Volunteer in your child's classroom and/or Sunday school class. I volunteer to teach in my kids Sunday School classes a few times a semester because it allows me to spend more time with them and gives me a chance to see them in a different environment.  I love being able to see how they interact with their peers and how they respond in group situations. Look into seeing how you could be involved in your child’s class, either at school or in church.

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And here are some ways to get more QUALITY time with your kids (some of which are also in the quality time list)

Eat Meals together.  I have already mentioned a few things about meals together.  Here are some more interesting articles on the value of family meals: From TIME, from Meals Matter, from Families.com, and  Science Daily. Making those meals quality time can be challenging, however. We have four children 7 and under and I often feel like meals are just spent with me saying, “Katie, sit down!” “Caleb, you need to finish chewing before you talk,” “Levi, you have to wear clothes to the dinner table!” and “Alaina, you need to let someone else have a turn to talk!” However, we do try to make these times together purposeful.  Jason will often ask the kids how homeschooling went. He will also ask me how my day was (modeling for the kids how to be interested in others).  We also sometimes play games, the favorite being where we all tell one sentence of a story and the next person adds on to it.  Oh, the adventures we have had in those stories!  Most of all, though, meals are an amazing time for training...teaching kids to listen while others speak, how to look at people when you are talking, how to sit and act properly, how to not interrupt, how to deal with food you don’t care for, and how to engage in conversation.

Turn off the TV.  Just re-read what I wrote about television above. There are a few rare exceptions of course, but for the most part TV time does not equal quality time. Occasional family movie nights could have their place, especially if the movies are carefully chosen and appropriate and are talked about afterwards, but really, movies are don’t allow for quality interaction.  I am not anti-TV, and Jason and I often watch a show together in the evenings, but it is always after the kids have gone to bed and usually it is after Jason and I have had time to talk and debrief our day.

Cook together.  Again, as mentioned above, allowing your kids to help in meal prep and cooking offers you some amazing opportunities for great conversation and training. Some of my best conversations with Alaina, my seven year old, have happened as we cooked dinner together.  Plus, she gets to learn some valuable skills!  She already knows her way around the kitchen pretty well and I am confident that I will send off an 18 year old to college with enough skills to more than adequately care for herself.

Take trips together.  In my example from yesterday, Mom A prided herself on their two yearly vacations. While my point was that these two vacations alone would not build the relationship with her daughter that she dreamed of, the vacations themselves are a great thing.  We are a family that loves to travel together and we forgo many things (new clothes, unnecessary trips to the store, $5 coffees, cable TV, and expensive meals out) so that we can afford to travel together.  Getting away from home for a few days -- or a few weeks -- is a great way to have family together time.  Playing, eating, and sometimes sleeping together will mean lasting memories and happy kids.  Trips, however, don’t have to be extravagant! It doesn’t have to be seven days at Disney or a family cruise.  It could just be camping at a local park or taking a few extra days to drive to grandma’s.  There is just something powerful about being away from home and being with the people you love.  We’ve got three trips coming up in the next few months (one for a weekend, one for four days, and one for 3 weeks!) and I am so excited!

Play with your kids. I know this sounds utterly obvious, but I would guess, based on my own experience, that this is difficult for many.  It sure is difficult for me (thankfully, Jason doesn’t seem to mind).  Kids games make me want to scream.  I loathe Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, and any other game that requires zero brain power.  I play anyway.  Hide and seek is grueling as the kids giggle so loudly that “finding them” requires all the dramatic skills I posses.  I play anyway.  I play because my kids want to be with me.  They want me to play with them, to focus on them, and to be fully engaged with what they are doing.  There are lots of ways to play with your kids -- board games, playing at the playground, putting on a dance show, singing songs, acting out stories, playing puppets, and more. Kids live for play and they desperately want their parents to be a part of it.

Take them out on-on-one.  I grew up in a family of four and I loved that fact that my parents often took us out one-on-one. Now granted, I think my mom did it to preserve her sanity (who would want to take four kids to the grocery store?) but still, the benefits were great and not forgotten.  I loved spending time with my mom without my siblings around.  It was time for me, the middle child, to really be able to open up and talk and have my mom’s full attention.  Now that I am a mother of four, I look for ways to spend time individually with my kids. It isn’t easy and I don’t do as well in this category as I would like, but it is something I am striving towards. A quick trip out for a doughnut or a weekend away -- it doesn’t matter.  Spending time with just you and just one child will go a long ways towards filling up his/her heart.

Do crafts together.  I don’t think my kids have ever turned down an opportunity to do a craft.  In fact, I usually get multiple requests a day for it.  They just love getting out all the fun materials and creating something. If coming up with ideas is hard for you, there are lots of books available on kids crafts. 

Tell them stories about when you were little.  My kids love to hear stories about my life as a little girl.  Somehow, sharing little tidbits of my life makes my kids feel connected to me. I love sharing different memories and talking about how things have changed or stayed the same since I was young.

Be consistent and thorough in discipline.  I know this may seem an odd thing to say in regards to quality time with your children, but I have found that times of discipline have been some of the most quality-filled times with my kids. I am not a huge fan of long “conversations” with a two year old, but as your kids are older (like four and above) it is amazing what can be talked about and shared in moments of discipline and correction. I often come into my child’s room after he/she has calmed down and we just talk.  I ask questions such as, ‘So, what happened here?” and “Can could we do this differently next time?”  I also make sure to tell them that I love them and that I don’t like punishing them, but that to be a good mommy I need to teach them right and wrong. Often, I also get to share a memory about a time when I was young that I made the same mistake.  Alaina especially loves to hear that I was young once and also made mistakes.  It shows her that I am human and that I have gone through what she is feeling.  It connects us together and it usually ends in snuggles and laughs.

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Obviously, these ideas are just a starting place.  But that is the point: you have to start.  If spending time with your kids -- whether in quantity or quality -- is hard for you, it is important that you start looking for ways to change that.  Take it step by step and the rewards for both you and your children will be great.

Comments

[Melissa]

Fabulous post! I do a lot of these things and struggle with others. Thanks for the great reminder...it's just what I needed today! :-)

[Shelby]

More wonderful ideas. THanks so much for sharing. I am really wanting to hear your thoughts on discipline. I know it is a personal decision on how you discipline but I struggle with it all the time. ):

[melanie]

hey, janet - was trying to shoot you an e-mail but couldn't find an address. can you send me an e-mail at your convenience?

[Vanessa]

I'm loving these posts!

[Amy in Peru]

awesome. right there with you with the computer time. and this is something that even though I homeschool, it is important to have 'fun' time together apart from just being police-mommy and teacher-mommy.

yep, you hit it...

we took a long walk on monday. it was time WELL spent. I'm looking forward to starting this again weekly. I posted pictures on my blog...
:)

amy
http://fisheracademy.blogspot.com

[Judi]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic. I often think about this in my daily schedule with my four kids. I am with you I can barely make it through a game of Candy Land! :) But I do it because I know it means the world to them. The favorite game right now is charades. I like this one!

It is easy to get caught in the mode of "I spent the whole day with the kids" but was I really "with" the kids!

[Ica]

Great post, thanks for the advice i think i should turn off the computer right away, after reading your post, and get down on the floor to play!!