Children grow up fast, too fast, in fact. It may not look like it from the day-to-day perspective, especially when you’re faced with emotional outbursts and power struggles, but when you look back on these occasions one day, you might regret not taking the time to be with them at the moment.
Most parents are too hung up on building a good future for their children that they don’t revel in the present. They could be busying themselves with work to earn a living and to put food on the table, but that means they won’t have enough time to bond with their children.
From another parent’s perspective, exerting all these efforts into creating a financially secure future for the kids is commendable. However, your kids might not understand that what you’re doing is for their sake; instead, they’ll see that you don’t spend enough time with them or are uninterested in what they do.
Of course, as a parent, it’s your job to financially support your family. But aside from that, you also have a responsibility to make sure that your children feel loved and supported, that they’re not neglected or pushed aside. So, here are three ways you can spend more time to bond with your children:
Build DIY Projects Together
One of the best opportunities to get to know your children is by working together on a DIY project. This could be as simple as creating fun, decorative pieces to put around your house, or it could be a more complex project that could take a while to build. For instance, you could construct a wall-mounted steel cubby hole for your garage.
With the complexity of the project, surely, you’re going to need extra helping hands, even if it’s just to hand you tools while you work. Your kids can also be there to tell you stories about themselves or share what happened during their day to keep you company while your hands do all the work.
The important thing is that you’re working together; it doesn’t matter how much work they’re actually contributing to the project. For instance, you could ask for their help when you’re picking out which product to choose from the available weld fluid solutions for sale.
Of course, the final say will still be yours because you know what will work best for your weld cleaning equipment, but it’s the thought that counts. Knowing that you consider their opinion and take the time to ask for their input can help you form stronger relationships with one another.
Eat as a Family at the Dinner Table
It’s common for family members to have their own lives, even if they live in the same house. That’s because they have different schedules and body clocks. However, this further divides the household and creates invisible gaps in the relationships, which can be difficult to mend.
A quick solution to this is to encourage your whole family to eat together at the dinner table. It doesn’t have to be a daily thing if you’re not used to it, but that should be the goal you’re working towards. You can start scheduling your family dinners on weekends, so you’ll have enough time to prepare.
At dinner, you can strike up conversations about what happened during everyone’s weeks, what challenges each one had to overcome, or what notable event they would like to share. This could be a great way to catch up with everyone’s lives, but make sure that you’re actively listening and responding to one another so that no one feels left out.
Schedule Group Hangouts
Another way you could spend more time with your kids is if you planned group activities on weekends or holidays. This doesn’t have to be a weekly thing, so you won’t have to be forced to do this out of routine, but maybe it could be scheduled at least once or twice a month.
Think of it as a way to relieve stress from the daily challenges that you must overcome at work and your children from their studies. It could even be treated as a reward for all your hard work. The hangouts could be as simple as scheduling movie marathons at home in which you take turns picking the films.
But it could also be a bigger event, like a trip to a theme park, planetarium, or even a family vacation. The trip itself doesn’t have to be expensive for it to be worthwhile. It just has to be something that you can all enjoy and do together. You can even ask your kids what they want to do directly and go from there.
Soon enough, your children will be adults who will have their own lives, which means it will be harder to find the time to bond then. You might wake up one day and regret not taking the chances to get to know your children when they were still young and at your side, so don’t wait for the opportunity to present itself. Instead, you must create the opportunity.
