Spending quality time with your child

Spending quality time with your child is one of the best ways to transform your relationship with your child when you are feeling like you’re not connecting, detached or disconnected or as if there’s no communication.

You as the parent must lead, you are the leader when it comes to transforming your relationship with your child. You are the sun and the children are the planets that orbit around you.

A practical application to spending more quality time with your child:

Ask your child what they would like to do with you. Hold a family meeting if necessary and ask your child what kind of things would you like us to do together? It could be fishing, cooking or bike rides.

Make sure you are listening very carefully and simply adapt what it is that they want to do.

Keep it simple, its about the time you will spend together, not about all the materials you will buy to make it happen. If the hobby grows and you really love doing this together, then you can invest further in the materials.

The most important thing is that you SET THE TIME to spend quality time together. Remain consistent and do this week after week after week. For example, every Saturday for 45 minutes we will build puzzles together.

If your child does not give you an answer back. Try and take the word “why” out of your vocabulary. When you ask “why?”, they will likely answer with “I don’t know”. Ask “how?”, “what?”, “where?”, “when?”.

Below there is a wonderful resource attached, the Jar game, with some thought provoking questions and conversation starters to use with your children. Place these questions in a jar and randomly pick out the questions you discuss with your child. You can do this one on one or together as a family. This will help, prompt and teach you on how to speak with your child. After consistence use and practice the conversation will become more authentic.

Here, you can read a testimonial from one of our mom’s who used this Jar Game with her children.

TIP:  If you have a teenager who doesn’t want to spend time with you, TAKE THE LEAD! Even if you just sit together for 45 minutes and not speak, that’s fine. Take a drive and go on a day trip. Find a way to ensure that you can spend the time together. If you commit, persist, persevere and push through the resistance and you will eventually break through and come to a point where there is communication freedom within your relationship.