Life is becoming too busy nowadays. Most parents do not get enough time for their family and personal time. Although the days with little kids always seem long, the years fly so fast.
Spending some particular time with your kids builds their well-being and development. These moments can make your kids happier and help them build resilience for their teenage years. Parents also help in nurturing skills for their kids like social skills, communication, reading and writing
As parents, we can make choices to ensure the time we spend with our kids is quality time. So instead of worrying about how many minutes you spend with your kids, focus on making those minutes memorable. This blog post will discuss tips for spending quality time with your kids.
Engage in Their Games
Making an effort to join your kids while playing their games makes them happy. You may find that you enjoy it too. You can even look for cooperative play ideas to try with your child. Games enable you to engage with your kids, and you get to create memories.
Kids are also likely to feel special when you do what they do. It is because you get to experience that part of your kids' world. In addition, games are very interactive activities. Hence, you get a chance to interact more with your kids.
Take Your Kids Out
Everybody enjoys going out, even kids. However, staying indoors can be boring sometimes, especially if you do not do any outdoor activities. Therefore, it will help to create some time to go out with your kids. Adults often go out and leave their kids behind with caregivers or other family members.
Kids can indeed be a lot of work outside since they are not likely to settle down in one place. But this is just kids' nature, especially toddlers. So, sometimes you can take your kids out and get a convenient location for them. For example, you can look for somewhere with kids zones like swimming pools. You can also go to places with open gardens.
Fix Things Together
When you fix things at home, consider involving your kids. It is one of the things kids enjoy most. In addition, when they do adult things, it makes kids feel knowledgeable. For example, if you are changing a tyre, do it with your kids and take them through the process to explain how you do everything.
Engaging your kids in home improvements gives them a chance to learn things and tools early, which is advantageous. You get to spend quality time with them since you train and educate them to fix things at home. You can exchange roles with them; for example, you can tell them to fix things as you watch or hold a flashlight for them.
Let Spending Time With Your Kids Be on Your To-Do List
Sometimes you need to commit yourself to doing something. For example, to ensure you get some quality time with your kids, you need to develop a strategy. Start by putting it on your to-do list. For example, you can start sparing all your evenings for spending time with your kids and family.
You can even try to always do their homework with them. You can have your kids help you with your chores because you are likely to be tired after a long day of work. You can give them some easy tasks like washing utensils or folding clothes.
Having a plan to spend time with your kids on your to-do list helps you look forward to these moments. It also lets you plan your time well, making sure you squeeze some time for your kids even with busy schedules.
Make a Bedtime Routine
Having bedtime routines is another way you can get to have some quality time with your kids. It would be best to come up with something you and your kids enjoy doing before falling asleep. You can come up with all kinds of ideas. You can develop games, tell stories, or even create songs to sing together.
It would help make bedtime moments precious and unique to your kids. The things you do with them make them look forward to evenings with their parents. Bedtime routines also motivate you as a parent to make it home early before your kids fall asleep.
Take Walks and Drives With Your Kids
Kids also enjoy alone time with their parents. Walking down to the shop with your kid gives you a chance to enjoy leisure exercises that are good for your health and your kid. You also get an opportunity to bond, and your kids may even get a chance to open up to you about things they are going through, for example, bullying in school.
Walks are always therapeutic. You and your kids get some fresh air and enjoy the breeze outside. Then, when you take your kids for a drive, you can teach them some basic things about cars and also driving. You also get to show them around different places and help them know their home area well.
Put Aside Gadgets Sometimes
We always spend too much time on our gadgets. That is, phones, tablets, laptops, computers and TVs. You need to keep these gadgets away to get more quality time with your kids. Phones can easily distract you, especially when you are on social media where you find yourself taking too much time on your phone, which you could use to do something with your kid.
Spending too much time on your screens is not only time consuming but also not healthy for you. Hence, taking less time on these screens can be more than helpful to you. Therefore, make a point of avoiding any distractions from these gadgets. If it means putting your phone on silent mode, then do so.
Have Meals Together
As a parent, you should try having meals together with your kids. If you cannot have all meals together, at least make an effort to have one of the meals as a family. You could have dinner together because it is after your kids are off from school and you are off from work.
Having a meal together will help you share thoughts, share feelings and plans and most of all spend some quality time together as a family.
Do Some Exercises Together
Doing exercises with family helps you stay healthy and spend time with your family. Besides, doing exercises together is fun. You can go for morning runs with your kids or even go for workouts together.
You can teach your kids simple exercise routines, which they can always be looking forward to doing with you. Kids can also adapt to these routines, which is a healthy way to live.
Cook Together
Kids enjoy doing adult things. Sometimes take your kids to the kitchen with you and enjoy making meals together. Your kids get to learn some cooking skills, and you also get to spend some time with them. They can also help you get a meal ready faster.
You can assign them different roles like washing utensils or slicing some vegetables if they are big enough. But, of course, you don't want your toddlers to play around with knives.
In conclusion, spending some quality time with your kids is not a chore; it is a privilege. So sparing some of your busy time to spend some time with them is very crucial. Kids, especially at a young age, bond with their parents. It's also when they form their identities and get securities or insecurities. Therefore that is the time you, an apparent need to be there more than ever.
