Benefits of Spending Time with Your Child

Time is a precious gift. Something we don’t always have in plenty. There is time for work and time for family. This is why these are the benefits of spending time with your child.

Working moms, stay-at-home moms, single moms, married moms, etc. we all have things to do. Whether it is a job we actually commute to, we work from home, whether we stay home all day caring for our family we all have things to get done.

Those things pile up and sometimes over take our life. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, more laundry, cooking, cleaning, organizing, school work, etc. the list goes on and on and never seems to get shorter.

Sometimes our kids take a back burner.

Its life and as sad as that may sound, if you truly let yourself go there, I’m sure there have been times your kids have felt the neglect.

Whether that is telling them “in a minute” which takes over an hour, whether you tell them “not right now honey” or you just flat out say “no”, we have all said this to our kids at one point or another.

If you haven’t yet, don’t worry you’ll get there.

You don’t even have to say those actual words.

Staring at your phone instead of fully paying attention to your kids is still the same thing as ignoring them verbally.

They feel it. Oh trust me they feel it.

And I’m just as guilty. I’ve said all of those above things. I’ve spent plenty of time on my computer working instead of engaging with my kids.

Sure I’ve done crafts with them and played outside many many times. But to them, its not enough.

But don’t feel guilty mom! (Read more about mom guilt here).

You cannot, I repeat CANNOT be their constant source of entertainment constantly. They can be “bored”, they will survive.

For some ideas on some activities to keep your kids entertained indoors, read here. For some outside activities, read here.

So let go of that mom guilt right now.

BUT there are times where you need to stop and let your sole focus be your kids. Be present. Be there.

There are plenty of benefits of spending time with your child too! From memories made, to better behavior. These are some reasons:

Memories

Those memories you will create with them now, will last them a lifetime and long after you are gone. Think back to your childhood, what are your favorite memories with your parents. See how long those memories lasted? It will be the same with your kids too!

Mood Swings

Is your child having major meltdowns and mood swings? This could be a cry for attention.

Undivided attention.

If you have multiple kids this may be hard but set aside a time or day where you have that quality time one-on-one with each child.

I bet you their moods calm down a bit. The more often you do this, the better connection you’ll have.

Validate Their Feelings

Spending quality time with your kids and really being present with them, asking them questions and actually listening to the answer will help them feel validated. Just being there to listen will help them open up and share their feelings.

Don’t critique or judge those feelings, just sit there and listen. Offer advice if needed but just be there as a shoulder to lean on if that’s what they need.

Gets You Out of Your Own Head

As a parent there are always a million things running through your mind. Many different ideas and things that pop-up to add to our never ending list of tasks.

It can get overwhelming.

Spending time away from the phone and just focusing on your child, will help you get out of your own head too!

Less Jealousy

If you have multiple kids, spending time with them can reduce the jealousy factor. Spend that one-on-one time mentioned earlier but also spend time as a group. Or if you only have one kid, spending that time together can reduce the jealousy between work and you kid.

Less Stress

The more laughs you have with those precious kids of yours, the more you will relax. Ever heard the expression, “laughter is the best medicine”? It’s true. Laughing with your kids will lower stress all the way around.

Cherish the Time

Kids grow up so quick. That is the number one thing moms always say. “Slow down time”, “you’re growing up too quick”, etc. So instead of dwelling on the time going by so quick, make time slow down by spending the time with your kid. Remembering how they act at each age and stage.

Good or bad. Study the way their smile curves when they grin, the way their eyes light up when they win a game, the way they look at you with such love and admiration. Study those glances and every little feature of them mama. Remember and cherish the time together.

They Won’t Forget

This goes again with the theme of they will always remember the memories made, but they will also remember how you made them feel.

Whether you ignored them and they felt neglected growing up or you took the time to spend time together and they won’t ever forget that feeling.

They may forget all the toys you bought them and they might not remember every trip, but they will never forget how you made them feel. So make sure it’s a positive one.

There you have it, benefits of spending time with your child for both child and parent.

I promise you, you will not regret spending time with them. It may be difficult at times because that long list of tasks eventually does need to get one.

But you will never look back at the memories and think “I spent too much time with my kids”.