5 Ways to Indulge in Quality Time with Your Children

Oftentimes, it can feel like the days are all blending when you have young kids - it seems like the same thing keeps happening over and over again; waking up, making breakfast, sending them to school, attending to your work, lunch after school, then dinner, bath, and bed. The routine is the same monotonous one, and you can't expect it to change into something exciting very many times. It's quite possible that after a grueling day of work, trying to come up with ideas to spend with your near and dear ones skips your mind and you crash into bed, overcome with exhaustion. 

Except for the fact that time plays by its own will - and before you know it, the years would have flown by you and left you dazed like when a car runs over a puddle and splashes all that muddy water on you. You'll find yourself giving away the little clothes that don't fit your not-so-little ones anymore, the barbie dolls for make-up sets, and the racing board games for gaming consoles. You'll be wondering how the time passed you by so quick

The problem lies in the fact that our responsibilities as parents often hamper us from truly enjoying those precious moments with our dear little ones. So, the simple solution is to stop worrying about how many hours you can spend with your kids. Instead, turn whatever little time you have with them into memorable instances. Spending some quality family time isn't that hard of a feat to achieve. 

Quality Time over Quantity of Time with Kids

Do you sometimes worry that you aren’t spending enough time with your kids? Do you wonder if you are missing out on certain aspects of their life and that this might harm them in some developmental way? Do you worry about having to work all the time and spend time away from your children? 

To top it all off, it doesn’t help to scroll through social media and see all the picture-perfect families with smiles plastered across their faces on their dream vacations. It just adds to the dejectedness and disappointment. 

Hey you, allow yourself to not be perfect all the time. Also, keep in mind that social media is, more often than not, merely a façade. 

To make you feel a little bit better, take a look at some of these studies that report quality time trumping quantity of time spent in many ways. 

Take a look at these 5 ways you can indulge in spending quality time with your children!

Take Pajama Walks

Most often, the hour right before bedtime is quite the chaotic one, especially for younger children. A good method for them to calm down slightly—if the weather permits—is taking an evening pajama walk. It's the perfect way to give your children some time to mellow down, and also helps you make some special memories with them which may have otherwise been lost to watching TV. 

The key to this is to walk them in their pajamas—that is, teeth brushed, faces washed, and ready for bed—and then put on their outdoor footwear and take a stroll around your locality. Make sure they don't eat anything en route and try to keep excitable chatter at bay. The idea is to make them tired enough to sleep as soon as their head hits the pillow when their home. 

No Gadget Hours

Come up with activities that you and your children can involve yourselves in without the need for gadgets. It can be anything, from painting using your fingers, gardening, reading storybooks together, playing card games or board games, learning a new language, playing an instrument, or maybe even playing your favorite sport outdoors. The idea is to reserve at least one hour each day away from gadgets—and that includes you, as a parent. Try and sanction that one hour in a way that you also can put your devices away, so that work notifications don't come in the way of the bonding activity. 

Exercise Together

Although it may take a while for this message to sink in with your kids, working out is one of the best ways to spend some much-needed quality time together. If you think about it, exercising regularly adds several years to your life, which means those many more years for you to be able to spend with your children! Additionally, you get the desirable bonus of being able to bond with your little ones during these daily workout routines. You can get them to play tag, learn to play tennis, shoot hoops in the basketball court (or maybe even just take laps around it)—there are so many ways you can involve your children outdoors!

Don't Drive Everywhere

The minutes that we wish to save by driving our children to and from short distances such as the neighborhood garden or a classmate's house are in fact precious moments that we are losing, for "convenience's" sake. Next time, when you need to take your children somewhere that's close by, see if you can make it there on foot. Walking with your children is a great way to slow down the pace and collect a few extra, unscripted moments with them. Let your conversations idly roam where they'd like to—talk about where you're going, what you're thinking, the things you see on the way, and whatever else comes to mind. Apart from the obvious altruistic benefits of saving the world by reducing petrol emissions, you also get to save a few bucks on gas and make a few more of those fleeting moments with your children matter.

Serve Them Their Favorite Junk items

Yes, we all want to keep our kids in the prime of their health by cutting down on excess calories provided by high amounts of sodium, sugar, and fat from junk food. We also don’t want our kids to develop an unhealthy obsession with it deriving comfort from food. 

At the same time, children need to be children. It won’t be long before they start monitoring their own calorie intake!

A healthy manner by which you can ensure your children enjoy their treats is by establishing special traditions around them so that it becomes an occasional affair and doesn’t happen very often. You can reserve the hot weekend noons for their favorite sundae desserts, and maybe some cold evenings for hot cocoa with marshmallows. You can involve them hands-on in assembling these snacks, so that they may feel proud of their achievement!

Obviously, the food in itself isn’t the point, but it definitely goes a long way in making the point. The point is that these special foods can act as conversation starters and go on to make memories that will last a lifetime. They probably won’t remember the exact recipe of the sloppy joe that you took years to perfect, but they will remember getting their hands messy alongside you. These traditions will be passed down to your children’s children, and maybe even their children! 

If you are successfully able to find a way to make the most of every precious moment you spend with your children, not only does that make you a wonderful parent, but simultaneously teaches your children how to become responsible adults and considerate parents themselves. It is important to be able to show your children how important the time you spend with them is, and before you know it, the generations after you will follow suit.  

Making time and spending it with your children conversely also provides them with an opportunity to be listened to and feel loved. Above anything else, it gives both you and your children some valuable time to connect. Taking these extra little moments to spend with them will allow you to look back and be grateful for all the memories that you have created.