From the article: Ideas for Mamas to Connect With Kids
As a working parent, you may not have huge quantities of time to spend with your kids. Quality time is your refuge. Whether it's a quick game of cards or walk around the block, quality time gives your children one-on-one attention they crave. Please share your ideas for quality time and read other readers' favorite bonding moments.
Quality time
- We have story time or take the dog for a walk. But I think the one thing that is great and gets the whole family together (because we have a big age gap between our kids 15, 4 and 19 months. Our teenage doesn't like to hang out with us much any more.) Every Thursday night we have family game night, everyone plays and sometimes extend family joins us, like grandma. It's great having the family together and I think our teenager even enjoys it. Even though he'll never tell!
- —Guest RockID
spending quality time with your kid
- I grew up in a developing country, we had no toys to play. Now I live in Canada, sometimes I share quality time with my daughter by showing her to make our all games without buying, playing with her the games I used to play with my friends when I was little. Teaching her to be creative and helping her to learn that we don't need to spend money to by toys but still have a lot of fun! My daughter is so exciting whenever I show her my games, she even shares the games to play with her friends at school. And one thing that I notice is whenever she has friends come over to play, they spend more time to play the games I show her.
- —Guest Hoang
Something Silly
- I read in a book once an idea to do something silly with your child. They get a really big kick out of it, and the experience is memorable. One example was to eat lunch or read a book in a weird place. I tried that by having story time with my daughter in a fort that we built. She really enjoyed it.
- —Guest CJmom
Reading!!
- We love reading. My son is 9 now, but he still loves to cuddle next to me while I read to him. Sometimes, we read different books while sitting together. Then, we exchange synopses about what we've read (if my book is too "grown up," I simply give him an edited version.
- —Guest SaKat
Sharing A Bedtime Story
- Sharing a bedtime story every night is a great way to relax and enjoy a special time with your child.
- —Guest MamaLiz
Hanging Out
- Every night before bed, I do one thing: hang out with my boys. We crawl into my older boy's bed, and simply talk about our day. This time is great for winding down, reconnecting and even snuggling!
- —Guest MomOfBoys
Commuter Horror
- I happily left a part-time job that took me 2 hours by transit to reach in the morning, and 2-1/2 hours to get home. I was on the go from 0430 am till midnight, then got up after 4-1/2 hours' sleep to do it all again. You can just imagine how effective I was at my job...
- —Guest Carol S.
Dinner together
- It's such a simple idea, to have dinner together, but so many families don't do this. Everyone is running here or there. As a kid, we almost never ate dinner together as a family. We all ate in shifts. Kids - then later my mom - then later my dad. As a parent now, we try to eat dinner together as a family at least twice a week. It's so nice to sit together and talk, even if you order take out for the meal!
- —Guest Anna
Quick picnic
- Recently my kids and I shared a picnic in the back of our station wagon. We had a small window of time between activities and appointments in which to eat dinner--too small to go home or even go out. So I packed a bag of sandwich fixings, fruit, and raw vegetables and we ate in the (parked) car. They loved it and it was so much more relaxing than rushing through the drive-through!
- —Guest Catherine
