Someone once said that children grow up in a blink of an eye and for working parents, that is true! While parents work hard to provide their children with the best of everything, they often lose time and miss out on spending quality time with their kids. Most parents, especially mothers, often end up having to choose between their hard-earned career and their beloved children. But why should there be a choice between the two most important aspects of a parent’s life?
Despite the chaos and tiredness, precious moments with little ones will be the most cherished moments of a parent’s life that shape an unbreakable parent-child bond. With the right techniques and methods, mothers can spend quality time with their children after a working day. These techniques can be modified according to each parent’s varying energy levels and the children’s interests. Let’s delve into some of the best quality time solutions for working parents to spend with their children.
Do Simple Household Tasks Together
Doing chores at home together makes children learn some essential life skills, and everyone gets to spend time with each other. Children develop a sense of responsibility and self-esteem as they complete tasks assigned to them. They can assist mothers in various small tasks like wiping the dishes after washing them, carrying groceries from the door, making their beds, cleaning up their study and play areas, etc. The activities should be assigned to children that are age-appropriate for them. According to Michigan University, children gain a sense of achievement and self-efficacy while helping out around the house, and learn to use their abilities to complete chores.
Doing household tasks together can be turned into a fun activity by turning on a little music and parents and kids dancing around while they do their chores. This activity is a great way to bond with the little ones and creates a core memory for them that they’ll cherish for life. This method can be fun and educational for the children as they learn the responsibilities of doing chores as well as fostering an ever-lasting relationship with their parents.
Establish “Friday-Family-Movie-Nights”
Friday evenings are the best time to establish a movie night for children as they can also sleep over the next day. Grown-ups can ask their children to select a movie for the day by the time they come back from work on a Friday. This will instill excitement in kids and they will eagerly look forward to spending time with parents. It can also be turned into an “eating-out day” by ordering food and spending the evening cuddled up together watching movies. This is a beautiful technique to spend time with children, and moms can have a relaxed time as well.
Family movie nights can be experiences that will stay with the children forever. They’ll be very appreciative of their parents and will find it very easy to bond with them. Working mothers spend most of their time at their jobs, therefore unwinding techniques like these help them connect with their children.
Outdoor Escapades
Children are little humans bottled up with immeasurable energy. Going to school, coming back, and waiting for their parents to return from work can be absolutely boring for them. Every once in a while grown-ups should make it a point to have a family outing anywhere nearby or as far as their schedules allow. Setting up a tent and having a campfire at night, a fishing experience, or even a simple picnic in the park can help kids let out their energy and have a great time with their parents. Working mothers should make sure their kids don’t miss out on outdoor experiences and activities and thus create a work-life balance to include such days in their schedules.
Unplugging Together and Letting Loose
In this era of smartphones, smartwatches, and other technical gadgets, children are getting addicted to the screens more and more. Mothers, especially working mothers, should pay attention to their children’s screen time and control it as much as possible. Instead, parents and children should get together, disconnect from their respective screens, and just have a good time with each other.
They can bake the kid’s favorites together, play with colors and paints to be creative, or just have deep conversations with each other every once in a while. Mothers should plan the activities in such a way that children eagerly look forward to this time of the day and step away from the fake, virtual world. Having deep conversations with teenage kids is a must as this is when they have a lot on their minds and need a parent to hear them out. Parents should never make their kids feel lonely and should try to spend as much of a happy time with them as possible.
Daily Morning and Bedtime Rituals
When mothers work from almost 9 in the morning to 6 or 7 in the evening, they find it extremely difficult to spend quality time with their children every day. To tackle this, they can set a daily morning and bedtime routine for children and spend that time exclusively with them. Waking kids up in the morning, brushing their teeth together, having breakfast together, and dropping them off at school should be a ritual that parents follow religiously to spend extra time with their babies. Similarly, at night, mothers should make it a point to have dinner together, do the dishes and other chores, and prepare for bedtime with their little ones. Singing to them or reading their favorite stories will help children fall asleep faster and bring a huge sense of satisfaction to the parents as well.
As today, most parents (both the mother and father) are working, there’s a high chance they find it difficult to spend ample time with their kids. This not only affects the child’s mental well-being but also deprives a parent of the simple joys of watching their child grow. The techniques discussed above can be planned meticulously by mothers and schedule their work timings to include quality time for their children. As much as a job is important to manage the needs of a family, spending time with them is equally crucial. Always remember the quality of time spent together with kids always surpasses the quantity.
Famous actress Anne Hathway has been quoted saying that after the birth of her first son, she made it a point to return home before his bedtime and spend some quality time with him. Reflecting on the significance of these post-workday moments, it becomes evident that the true wealth lies not in the busyness of the day but in the quality of time spent with our children. Encouraging working mothers to prioritize and cherish these moments fosters the understanding that, amidst life’s chaos, it is these simple yet profound moments that shape the enduring relationships between a parent and child.
