Every parent would love to just spend all day and night with their children, pampering them, playing with them and teaching them all there is to know about the ups and downs of life. Sadly, everyone has to do their part for society and make money for their children to live a comfortable life, but that doesn’t mean we have to become wage slaves. Spending time with our children is uplifting, fun and motivational, but how can we make more time in the day to spend with them?
Making Time
There are many ways to make more time to spend with your children. For starters, planning your day can have some very positive time-saving effects. If you focus on getting your important tasks out of the way as soon as possible, such as work, doing the grocery shopping or repairing parts of your home, the rest of your day can be spent with your children. There are many smartphone apps that can help you get organised. They’re easy to use, surprisingly effective, and many of them are free.
You can also make time for your children by cutting down on regular things you do. For instance, if you work overtime on a regular basis at work, you can ask your boss to shift your overtime and let you work from home or remove it entirely. Yes, you might need to make sacrifices to spend more time with your kids, but it’s worth it in the end.
You can also cut out things such as regular shopping trips. You can do this by buying your groceries online or ordering a subscription service. With the power of the internet, you can get a monthly or weekly subscription for anything from mens socks to your most common snacks and food items. Depending on how long your weekly shop takes, you could be saving hours per week and they can be used with your children instead.
Spend That Time Meaningfully
Now that you’ve made more time, how do you spend it? There are many meaningful ways to spend time with your children, but it all stems from understanding their needs and wants. For instance, if something like a toy broke and your child is upset about, then offer to fix it with them or to go to the store and buy a new one together. Don’t take the care either, take a walk so that you can spend more time chatting with your child and spending time with them instead of getting to the store quicker. Although saving time makes sense to get the most out of life, time spent with your children is never wasted no matter how slow something goes.
You also want to let your children indulge in their favourite things. Serve them ice cream sundaes with all the sugary and delicious toppings they want. Make them hot chocolate when you’re gathered around and watching a film together, and buy pizza when you’re having a family night in. You never want to train your children to gain comfort from food, but they’re children, so treat them as such!