As a parent, you may be working away from home during the day.\u00a0 When you arrive home at the end of the day there is still work to be done.\u00a0 You may be thinking of what you have to do the next day. The time you have with a child may be minimal, compared with all of the other activities on any particular day.<\/p>\n
It is vital, therefore, to focus on the moments that you can spend with your child.\u00a0 Each moment of \u201cquality\u201d will enhance his or her well-being.\u00a0 Lois, for instance, is a working mother, who spends a lot of time as a nurse in a community hospital.\u00a0 But she feels guilty that she doesn\u2019t spend enough time with her four-year-old daughter, Jennifer. Lois says, regretfully, \u201cI wish I could spend more time with Jennifer, but there isn\u2019t lots of time left after I\u2019m done with my housework.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you are like Lois, there is a feeling of \u201cguilt\u201d and inadequacy because you want to spend more time with your child.\u00a0 But it seems that it never happens. The feelings of guilt, and the desire to be with your child, make you feel you\u2019re neglecting the child.\u00a0 You don\u2019t want to continue to feel this way.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t help the child, and it is not even good for your own health and well-being.\u00a0 Therefore, the first step is to set a goal of spending \u201cquality\u201d time with your child.\u00a0 You can start today<\/p>\n
Since you don\u2019t have a lot of time, you want to do the best you can to make \u201cquality\u201d time: giving your child full attention in the moment, and letting the child express his or her own feelings and desires.\u00a0 You can begin with reading stories to the child.\u00a0 When you read a story, it is pivotal to get her input after you are finished.\u00a0 When she is about three to six, you may even want her to read the story to you in her own words, even if she can\u2019t read all the words.\u00a0 Give her the chance to \u201cread\u201d the same story back to you.\u00a0 Reinforce her creative expressions.<\/p>\n
Reading stories can be at bedtime, but it can be any time of the day that you have available.\u00a0 As you continue to read stories, the child will begin to love to read.\u00a0 This is a pleasant effect of your quality time with the child.<\/p>\n
There are, of course, other things you can do with the child.\u00a0 You can play with her as time permits.\u00a0 There are many ways to play:\u00a0 make-up games, letting the child choose what she wants to play, and various games, such as Pictionary, playing with dolls, or cars.\u00a0 It should be fun.\u00a0 If the child can make choices and express herself, it can stimulate her imagination as she creates roles and characters in the play.\u00a0 You can guide her.\u00a0 But let your child \u201cdirect\u201d the play activity.<\/p>\n
In addition to play, you can color with your child, or use an \u201cactivity\u201d book to do more interesting projects. There are a number of other activities that you may suggest to your child. The possibilities are endless.\u00a0 The important thing is that it evokes pleasure for you and your child.\u00a0 You will feel good about spending time with your child that has quality.<\/p>\n
Lois discovered that she could spend more time with Jennifer\u2014quality time.\u00a0 Lois felt more relaxed: \u201cI thought I couldn\u2019t do anything with Jennifer, but then I decided to make the time to spend with her.\u00a0 I started to read The Cat in the Hat and encouraged Jennifer to talk about the story.”<\/p>\n
As a working parent, it is not easy to spend enough time with your child.\u00a0 There are many things you\u2019re doing to provide the necessary resources for your family.\u00a0 But if you are\u00a0attuned to the needs of the child and want to spend quality time with him,\u00a0he will feel loved and secure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a parent, you may be working away from home during the day.\u00a0 When you arrive home at the end of the day there is still work to be done.\u00a0 You may be thinking of what you have to do the next day. The time you have with a child may be minimal, compared with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthy-lifestyle","category-parent-and-child"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelpanar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}