It's important to spend time with your children

With today's busy lifestyles, parents need to spend "quality" time with their children. But what is quality time?

Quality time is time spent doing an activity that is meaningful to the parent and child. It is time when family members really get to know each other. Quality time is spent focusing attention on the other person and sharing thoughts and feelings.

Spending time with your children can be fun and educational for you and your child.

"Most of the child's basic learning takes place in the many informal situations that occur daily in the life of the family," according to a bulletin by Dr. James E. Can Horn, Professor of Rural Sociology, Pennsylvania State Cooperative Extension. "These informal occasions for learning include all the times the family members are together doing ordinary things, such as getting dressed, taking baths, preparing to leave for kindergarten, eating and so forth."

The activity does need not be costly, but rather one that satisfies both the parent and the child.Two simple suggestions for spending uality time with your family include baking cookies and sharing them with a friend, or playing a family game.

The importance

of raising children

The goal of being a parent is to help your child become a responsible adult. To achieve this goal, parents help children learn about life and living in today's society. The time a parent spends with a child is important.

Children need to be

loved unconditionally

Doris Curran, a parent educator, says the cry of children today is, "Love me for who I am, not what I do. Love me for being, caring, sharing and erring, not winning, placing and showing."

That does not mean that you have to approve of everything the child does. What it does mean is that even though the child misbehaves, you still love and accept the child and provide support.

Talk with your child

Spend time talking with your child. Talk about any topic of interest to both of you. Talk about the day's events and the child's feelings about them.

Through observation and interaction with parents, children learn how to communicate. Children learn to express their needs. They learn to listen. They learn to understand nonverbal clues.

Life's lessons

Children learn about families from the time they spend in their own families. They learn about birth and caring for another person when a new baby comes home from the hospital. They learn about loss when a family member dies. They learn about marriage and relationships by watching their mothers and fathers interact. By living in a family, children learn to share, how to stand up for their own rights and how to love another person.

Building self-esteem

Parents help children develop positive self-esteem by communicating the value they feel for the child. Words of encouragement and love help provide children with the courage to try new things without excessively about not being able to do them.

Growing up with trust

Children learn about trust at home from their parents. They learn trust from being trusted. When the parent trusts the child to accomplish a task on his or her own, the child learns that he or she can do the task.

Give guidance

Parents help children learn to be more responsible when they help children learn to control their own behavior. A disciplined person has the ability to decide what appropriate behavior is and to act accordingly. Parents use discipline to help guide their children as they become responsible adults.

Take the time to make discipline a learning experience for the child. Appropriate discipline should include four parts. The child needs to understand: which behavior is not acceptable, and why; and what behavior is appropriate, and why. By helping a child understand the reason why their action was unacceptable, the child can learn what acceptable behavior is. There is no one right way to discipline a child. A variety of discipline techniques exists. What is important is a warm and loving relationship between the parent and the child.

References 1. VanHorn, James E. Parent Education: The Importance of Family Meals, Pennsylvania State Cooperative Extension Service, 5/93

2. Curran, D. (1991). Delores Curran Talks with Parents. Family Information Services, Section 9, M&P 17-18.