Spending QUALITY time with your child

Happy Parenting

By Jacqui Flint

Did you know there are roughly only 940 Saturdays between a child’s birth and her leaving for college/varsity? That may sound like a lot of Saturday’s to you but how many have you already used up? If your child is 5 years old, 260 Saturdays are already gone and as your child grows older she will get busier and will want to spend her free time with her friends and partaking in her own activities.

So how, amongst the mayhem of life, do you get to spend QUALITY time with your child?

There are two ways; planned and unplanned.

Proactively plan the time you want to spend with your child.  Planning quality time can come in many forms:

• having a picnic (in your garden or even lounge)
• building a cave with blankets in the lounge
• nipping out and grabbing a soft-serve ice cream together
• putting aside just 30 minutes to sit on the patio and colour in or build a puzzle
• bake together (muffins, pancakes, jelly)

The second way to spend quality time with your child is often when you least expect it.

• Driving in the car to school and back home. There is nothing else to do but chat with each other.
• Make dinner fun by having a theme, eg. Braai, pizza, Chinese, Italian, tacos or even pancake night. Having a theme is fun and exciting and if possible, let your child set the table in accordance with the dinner theme.
• Moms and daughters can have a make-up morning.
• Dads and sons can potter around in the garage.

Quality time means:

• no cell phone, i-pad, TV etc.
• all your attention is on your child
• your child will feel special and important
• you’re telling your child you enjoy spending time with them

When children grow up they won’t remember the latest cell phone you bought them, instead they’ll remember the fun times spent with you, so start creating those everlasting memories.

Look for ways to grow in this area.