What are two
things that are scarce in our society today?
Available quality time due
to increasing demands for it and face-to-face interaction due to the explosion
of social media. Yet as parents these
are two things that our children desperately need and want. Who wants an emotionally healthy and stable
child? We all do. Who is a perfect parent? No one is.
However, we can strive to be the best parents for our children that we
can and enjoy the journey along the way.
Veola Vasquez with Focus on the Family says in her article “Emotional
Development” to “Be purposeful in
guiding your child's emotional life. Focus intentionally on his
emotional needs. These needs are just as important as his cognitive, physical
and spiritual needs. Some ways to do this are:
1. Build a strong bond
by spending quality time with your
child. Experts agree that parents who interact regularly with their
children — beginning in infancy — develop stronger bonds. 2. Stay emotionally in tune. Connect with
your child on an emotional level. Attempt to understand what she is
feeling. When she is happy, be happy for her; when she is sad, cry with her.
3. Model healthy emotional
relating. Your children will mimic the way you handle emotions and the
way you relate to others. By managing your own emotions in a positive way, your
children will learn to do so as well. 4.
Teach children how to handle negative emotions. Doing
this well does not come naturally. Children need to be taught how to handle
defeat, deal with conflict or be angry in a healthy way. Children who are
taught these skills early are better able to handle negative feelings as
adults.” All of these things take time.
Harley A. Rotbart, M.D. from Parents magazine reminds us that we only
have 940 Saturdays typically between a child’s birth and them leaving for
college. 260 of those are gone by age
five. 
From where do we find this time?
First, we need to remember that it is the quality of time, not the quantity. We need to take the minutes we have and turn
them into memorable moments. And, when
we make it enjoyable and create little traditions along the way we find
ourselves carving out more time
with our children and actually looking forward to it. Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell, M.D. say in their book The
Five Love Languages of Children, “Quality time
is a parent’s gift of presence to a child.
It conveys this message: ‘you
are important. I like being with you.’” This is going to look different for various
situations such as single parent homes, number of children, whether one or both
parents are working, etc. I have worked
a full time job from home with two children, I have been a single mom with a
part time job from home, and I am now a married stay at home mom with three
children and I am in graduate school.
The seasons of time I have had with my children have varied greatly and
now my 13 year old is becoming more independent and spending time away with his
friends so our time is beginning to look a little differently. Some ideas that don’t necessarily require a
lot of time are eating breakfast
together and praying for the day or taking them out to breakfast before school,
going to have lunch with them at school, stopping for a moment when we get home
from work with no distractions to hold their hand, look in their eyes, and find
out about their day, let them help cook dinner even if it gets messy, take
their favorite book and have a picnic at the park, take them out for an ice
cream, have movie night with popcorn, go for a walk and take crazy pictures of
each other along the way, include them in grocery shopping and let them pick
out ingredients for their favorite meal, play a board game together, build a
fort with them, make a little flower garden together and regularly check it
together, go to the library and do story time
together, and leave them encouraging notes wherever we can to surprise them and
remind them one more time that we love them.
Have a bedtime routine that is packed with meaning, even if it is five
minutes. We need to make the most of
every moment we have with our children and show them how important our time is with them. This will impact generations to come also.
Another easy way to make the most of
the time we do have with our
children is to understand their love language and let that be our primary focus
with each child. Chapman and Campbell
list the five love languages as physical touch, words of affirmation,
quality time, gifts, and acts of
service. Each child has a primary love
language that best communicates love to him or her. We can learn how to transfer our heartfelt love for them to the
hearts of our children. For children
with their primary love language as physical touch, “a tender hug communicates
love to any child, but it shouts love to these children”. These children are usually very touchy,
feely because they are speaking their own language. For the children with words of affirmation as their primary love
language, “words are powerful in communicating love. Words of affection and endearment, words of praise and
encouragement, words that give positive guidance all say, ‘I care about
you.’ Such words are like a gentle,
warm rain falling on the soul; they nurture the child’s inner sense of worth
and security. Even though such words
are quickly said, they are not soon forgotten.
A child reaps the benefits of affirming words for a lifetime.” For the
child whose primary love language is quality time
(with even more emphasis than normal) it means giving that child your undivided
time. It includes positive eye contact, sharing thoughts and feelings,
quality conversations, storytelling, etc.
For the child whose primary love language is gifts, the “most meaningful
gifts become symbols of love and the child must feel that his parents genuinely
care through the other love languages”. We need to “give less rather than more
and carefully choose gifts that will be meaningful rather than impressive. When your child has the primary love
language of acts of service, they tend to appreciate things we do for them on a
different level. “The ultimate purpose
for acts of service to children is to help them emerge as mature adults who are
able to give love to others through acts of service.” 
A fun idea would be to set up a date
with your child and go through the quiz in the book to find out what their love
language is and discuss it with them.
Find out what things mean the most to them and celebrate their
individuality. Share with them specific
reasons you love them and remind them how thankful you are that they are
yours. This face-to-face time never
needs to be replaced by social media (texting our children even when we are in
the same house, Facebook instead of going through pictures together, tweeting
messages that can be shared through a hug or laugh or tears, etc.). Dr. Christopher Healy from NC State
University says, “The written word can be so hard to discern because of the
lack of voice inflection, eye contact and facial expressions. As the newer forms of communication boom in
popularity---texting, emailing, and tweeting – the human emotion gets further
and further removed from the message”.
Let’s turn off the television and our electronic devices and spend some
quality time with our
children. 
For various reasons we all tend to be
physically and emotionally drained at the end of most days. As parents we also need to give attention to
our own physical and emotional health to be able to make the most of the
snippets of time we have with our
children. Some things we can do are put
the phone on vibrate and listen to relaxing music on the way home from work,
stop the car before we get home and pray, take a few minutes to get a cold
drink and change into comfortable clothes before settling in with the family,
have a set bedtime for the kids and grab a magazine and get in a bubble bath to
wind down for the day, light candles and play music while cooking dinner with
no electronics and create a relaxing mood for the entire family, and we cannot
be afraid to sometimes let our children know we cannot wait to spend some time with them but we need to take a breather
first. We have real emotions also and
they need to see us be honest and handle them in a constructive way. We have good days and bad days; wonderful
seasons in life and some that are not so great.
From this point forward, let’s be the best parents we can be and maximize the time we do have with our children and create lasting memories and keep their love tanks full. We as parents have made mistakes and will continue to make mistakes; however, we can set the example and be an encouragement to parents around us that quality time with our children is vital and blesses our hearts as well as theirs. Neither our lives nor the social media world with falter because we turn off our iphones and love on our children. Let’s have fun!
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