Why spending quality time with your kids is good for you

Working at home, or being a stay-at-home mum, can mean when it comes to spending quality time with your kids you tend to think you do it all the time. But do you spend quality time with them or are you just around them all day? The quality time is important, spending time with them, talking, playing, it's all about engaging with them - getting involved.

My Hubby has worked at home for 10 years, it's been a good routine for us. He's here when the boys get home after school, he's around for the school holidays, and he can take a day off if he feels like it. Of course with that kind of routine it's easy to get complacent about spending time with the kids. We end up feeling like we're always together so spending a day playing games or watching our favourite shows isn't a bad use of our weekends. But I think when you're at home all the time it's probably more important to make an effort to spend quality time together.



The importance of spending quality time with your kids


Builds kids' self-esteem. Spending quality time with your kids helps them feel valued by you, and as a result they feel more positive about themselves. We love board games, we have a huge collection and come the weekend we'll play at least one of them. Since LP was about 6 years old we've involved him in the game playing, even if it was a game he couldn't play himself - then we'd just have him on our "team". Now that he's 10 he often beats me at Scrabble, he has unparalleled luck when it comes to Yahtzee (getting 4 "yahtzees" in one game!), and don't even get me started on Monopoly! The result is that LP loves playing board games and will request his favourites.


Why Spending Quality Time With Your Kids Is Good For You | Board games are a great way to spend time together, try Ingenious!
This is Ingenious - a fun and simple board game.


Strengthens family bonds. This speaks for itself really, the more quality time you spend with your kids the stronger the bond between you. Like I said, we like to spend time playing board games, but that's not all we do. We like to go for walks too, or even watch movies together. We do spend a lot of time talking to, or just being with our kids. At 10 years old LP still climbs onto the Hubby's knee in a morning. He'll happily sit there for 30 minutes hugging his dad and talking to him about his puzzles (on the iPad) or discuss whatever he's seen on the news. LP is still happy to be close to his dad, and I love that.





No amount of money or success can take the place of time spent with your family.

Unknown





Encourages communication. Walks are great for this. By taking your family for a walk (somewhere quiet preferably) you get to talk about all kinds of topics. We love our walks and luckily live near lots of canals so we have miles of paths we can walk along when we fancy it. During our walks we cover all kinds of topics including science, politics, economics, and many more. When we hit on a topic BP enjoys you can't shut him up, and it often leads to him sharing things about his school life - which is epic considering he's a teenager. Getting your kids to communicate can be quite a struggle when they're older so anything you can do to encourage that is a good thing.


Why Spending Quality Time With Your Kids Is Good For You | Walking is a good way to get your kids talking.
We love walking and talking.


Helps kids be a good friend. By spending quality time with your kids you're teaching them how to behave, how to be friendly, how to be polite. Talking to them, communicating, playing games, whatever it is you decide to do, helps them learn and as a result have better friendships. 



Why it's good for you


  • Deepens empathy for your child. Spending quality time with your kids helps you learn about their lives. Perhaps they're going through something you once did and you can remember how you tackled it. Maybe they're having trouble with a friend or want to help someone. By spending time with them you are able to understand what they're going through - strengthening your bond.


  • You see how much they love you. There is nothing quite like seeing the sparkle in your kid's eyes when they spot you from a distance. Or when they get up in a morning and climb all over you. Or even when they ask for an extra story at night just so they can spend a little more time with you. Nothing can fill your heart more than realising this little person loves you more than anything in the world.

Why Spending Quality Time With Your Kids Is Good For You | Have fun together and see how much they love you.
My boys love having fun with their dad.


  • Help teach your kids about boundaries. When you spend quality time with your kids you're able to set boundaries. Like when they climb on you in a morning but you're feeling a bit off - you tell them to get down and sit next to you on the sofa. This isn't a bad thing, you're simply teaching them that when someone doesn't feel right climbing on them isn't okay. And the same thing goes for other boundaries too. 


  • A shift in focus. Taking the day to spend with your kids shifts your focus from the housework and other chores to your kids. Instead of stressing about whether the washing gets done you end up having fun at Chester Zoo watching the Orangutan swing around and before long that washing stress seems like a distant memory. Spending quality time with your kids usually takes away the stress of day-to-day life and makes you see what life is really all about.





... togetherness is a very important ingredient to family life.

Barbara Bush






  • Slows the world down. How often do you feel like the weeks are flying by, the years whizz past, and time is slipping away? By spending quality time with your kids you're slowing down the world - you're pausing time and enjoying the one-to-one with your kids. You forget about the passing of time and just enjoy yourself. And that's got to be a good thing.

Why Spending Quality Time With Your Kids Is Good For You | Slow the world down and chill.


  • Connect with your kids. When you take the time to spend with your kids and learn about the kinds of things they like, you also learn about the things you have in common. BP enjoys drawing and writing, and of course I like writing too. We can spend hours talking about his writing, going over what he's written. It's a great way for us to spend time together and it's also a way of us connecting. The same thing goes for BP and programming - his dad is a programmer and they can both spend hours on end discussing programming techniques or a "bug" that's been found. They even discuss programming when out on walks!

Why Spending Quality Time With Your Kids Is Good For You | Connecting, being there with your kids, it's all good.


Like I said, when you spend all day at home the idea of spending more time with your kids can seem daunting. But it's not about the time but about the quality time you spend together. Spending quality time with your kids is good for you, AND good for your kids.



How do you spend quality time with your kids?




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