How Much Time Is Enough To Spend With Your Children? | HealthInfi

When you get home from work and your kids get home from school, do you collapse onto the sofa and veg out in front of the TV together? Or, after dinner, do you just have a few minutes left to help with homework? Then, when it’s all done, you and the kids grab your smartphones or tablets to check social media before turning in for the night. How much time do you spend with your kids? Do you think it’s enough? Chances are you’re thinking, ‘I wish it was more.’

Working moms and dads really feel the stress, yet Americans spend more time with their children than anyone else. So why do they feel so guilty about taking time away from the tots? Parents spend more time with their children than their non-working mom counterparts in the 1960s, according to researchers at Bowling Green State University.

They spend so much time with their kids because they believe it helps predict success for their little ones. But it turns out all that time and worry doesn’t make kids happier, less likely to do drugs or be successful. Though there is such a thing as good and bad time spent together — and that does make a difference, the researchers found.

For kids under 6, if you spend time watching TV or doing nothing with them, it is detrimental. So get up off the couch. Researchers found that the more time spent with mom in the teen years, the less risky behavior the teen exhibited. And the more family meals a teen experiences, the less likely they are to abuse drugs and alcohol and engage in other risky behaviors, plus they end up with higher math scores.

Here’s the magic number: 6 hours a week is all it takes, in the teenage years. Together as a family, you could do that just on a few nightly dinners and a game night. But don’t overdo it. The American Academy of Pediatrics said for our little ones, they need unstructured solo play time for healthy development.

When parents spend too much time with their children, forsaking their own endeavors and personal, alone time, it stresses them out. They shave sleep to do more for their children, leaving them sleep deprived, feeling guilty, and building anxiety. So go for quality time, not quantity. This research and others have borne out that if parents read with their kids, make and eat meals together, and parent with warmth and sensitivity that all leads to healthy, stable kids not seeking drugs and sex at a young age.

I can’t be the only parent who worries if she is doing enough with her kids on a regular basis, right? Every day I see Facebook updates from friends sharing  what they did with their kids today, on the weekend, and on vacation, and it gets overwhelming. How do they do it all? I can’t take my kids grocery shopping without wanting to leave them in the produce section. A trip to Disney World, nope, not happening. That would be the end of us all.

But recently I realized something that helped me stop worrying and trying to fill my kids’ lives with constant activities. I thought we weren’t doing much, but scrolling through the pictures on my phone was a great reminder that we actually did do a lot. Did we go to Disney World? Well, no, that would still push me right over the edge. But we did do plenty: bowling, movies, family parties, the beach, the library, school plays, sledding, an amusement park, baseball games, ice cream, the playground, the zoo, and a few road trips. We even went to Disney on Ice maybe not Disney World, but it’s the closest I’m getting for a while. How could I consider that “not enough”?

Most of us are doing lots of things with our kids that don’t seem like a big deal at the time. Now that I’ve looked back on an entire year, I know that we didn’t just let the kids watch YouTube videos every day. Don’t get me wrong they watch their fair share but years from now are they going to look back at pictures and remember what we didn’t do, or will they remember the time we went to the zoo 15 minutes from our house? I’m betting on the zoo.

So, fellow worriers, please cut yourself some slack. My kids have probably done more in one year than I did during my entire childhood, so why was I worrying? Contrary to what my Facebook feed might suggest, we’re doing just fine even if we never make it to Disney World.Read More