Best Ways to Spend Time with Your Children Creatively
These days, modern parents face many challenges when it comes to daily as well as work life, maybe even more than ever. There are so many things to juggle, that sometimes we tend to lose ourselves somewhere along that way, trying to earn a living and bring up a family. Whatever parents do, they do it for their children. Parents can endure many things just to be able to afford their children a nice life. However, sometimes we lose focus and forget why we’re actually doing what we’re doing. We forget to nurture our kids and spend quality time with them. In order for them to be just and happy people, parents need to invest their time and efforts to make them such. Money itself is not going to make people out of our children, we mustn’t forget that.
That’s why we need to be proactive about making time to spend with our children. Quality time doesn’t necessarily always have to involve some kind of adventure. It can be some simple, everyday activity as we don’t always have physically too much free time on our hands. In order to help parents spend more quality time with their children, we’ve compiled a list of things you can do. What you can start with is the basics and playing some board games together. Also, what you should do every day is simply talk to your children. Moreover, you can teach your children to do some chores and do them together. Getting active and playing a sport is another great way to bond with your children. Plus, it’s good for both your and their health! Preparing meals together is yet another everyday activity you can enjoy doing together.
- Get back to the basics: Play old but gold board games
Today, everything is about technology, phones, tablets and laptops being the direct intermediaries. No wonder children aren’t familiar with the concept of board games. They associate games with technology and devices, as they’ve had their gadgets from an early age. Even though you can play some games together, they don’t promote bonding in the way traditional board games do. That’s why it would be good to teach them to play some board games. It can be the focus of your family time. You can buy some new ones or search for your old ones – perhaps you have them stored somewhere around the house. These board games teach children many useful things, besides how to play those games. They teach them good social behaviour, winning, losing as well as bonding with family members on a whole new level.
- Simply talk to your children
Such a simple and inexpensive thing and yet so difficult to do somehow. Parents need to be involved in their children lives. They need to always know what is going on in their children’s lives. This is an important form of quality time with your kids. What you can do to make this a habit is simply ask your children how their day was after they come home from the child care centre or school. If you pick up your kids from those insitutions, use the commute time to discuss their day. Remember to ask them about their feelings, troubles, friends, progress and everything else. Talk time can also be a few minutes before bed or after getting up – it’s all that it takes.
- Engage in doing chores together
Even though doing chores doesn’t sound fun at all, you can make it so. First of all, when doing dull chores with somebody, it’s much more interesting than doing it alone. Secondly, this is a great way for you to instil some good habits in your children and teach them to do some basic chores. Being involved in chores teaches them responsibility. Try to make them fun by picking chores out of a hat and by playing some music while doing it. Trust us, it will make it more fun!
- Get active
Now, this is something that implies fun – playing a sport together as a family. Depending on your children’s age and preferences, you can choose some sports or sports activities. If the weather is nice, you can go to the nearby park or a riverside – all you need is a ball, a frisbee or a badminton set and you’re good to go. You can enjoy the nice weather, warm sun, fresh air, nature and the company of your family while engaging in some beneficial physical activities. In this way, you also teach your children to be active and that’s something to stay with them in the future.
- Prepare meals together
Another thing you can do together and spend some quality time while doing so is in the kitchen, preparing meals. Children can help you in cutting and arranging things. Who knows, maybe they can even give you some creative ideas when it comes to meal prepping. Use this time to teach them about healthy meals and their importance for our overall health.
- Promote creativity with some mutual DIY crafts and projects
You can get crafty and find some projects online for you to do together. Start with some simple things, see how that goes and slowly upgrade the level of difficulty. Kids love getting their juices flowing and hands dirty. Remember that it can get messy, and it often does, it’s just the way it is. Make sure to protect everything around you that needs protection. Don’t worry if what you do is not Pinterest worthy – the important thing is to do it together and have fun while doing it. Seeing something you made together promotes an awesome sense of achievement.
All of the activities mentioned, teach your children many useful things, besides being great material for spending quality family time together. So, in a way you kill a few birds with one stone. Remember that even when you have too much on your mind – always find at least some time for your children.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
