Children Time! The experts all say that the best thing to spend on your children is your time. Nevertheless, toys have become a parent substitute for time spent with children today. How much money is spent on children’s toys each year? How many parents do you see who try to buy their kid’s affection with toys? Children are inundated with Nintendo, video games, tablets, cellphones, TV, and countless other throw-away items. We bury our kids with an avalanche of toys and mindless distractions. The toys and the interest in the toys do not seem to last as long as the batteries before a new toy is demanded.
Once upon a time children, if they were good, got one special toy at Christmas or on their birthday. Today, every day is toy day for kids. I have seen friends who have children with so many toys you can barely walk through their houses. Many motorcycle clubs have a ride each year called “Toys for Tots” to obtain toys for children. I will never support this effort. The real problem is too many toys for children and not enough books. How about rides for “Books for Tots.” Perhaps parents should spend more time reading to their children and less time buying toys for them. Libraries are free in this country and have plenty of books for TOTS!
Have you noticed that kids seem more angry these days? (witness the increasing school violence). They are certainly getting more obese (due I believe in some small part to all the toys they have that prevent them from playing outside and getting some real exercise). I see young children riding down the street on motorized skateboards and motorized scooters instead of pedaling or pushing a regular skateboard or riding a non-electric bicycle.
Computer sports, war games and other on-line competitive games have replaced real sports for many kids. Of course, there are those children whose parents are grooming them for the NFL or NBA or NHL. These poor kids are forced to go to so many sports events they hardly have a life outside sports. Trailed all over the state by the inevitable coach parent, they will probably learn to hate sports as something that is a duty rather than something you can do for fun. I wonder how many of these sport-aholic parents and children will appreciate exercise for exercise sake when the child grows older or can no longer compete in a team sport. Do the children of sport-aholic parents really enjoy the parent child time spent together? I hope so.
Regardless of how much we give our children or how many sporting events we make our children attend, the thing they will remember the most and that will have the most impact on their lives will be the quality of the time that we spend with them. Quality time is time spent interacting with our children. This does not mean watching TV with them or even going to their soccer games and baseball games. It is time spent relating to them and sharing parent wisdom, guidance, and experience with them. It is time spent having dinner with your children, camping with your children, roller skating, ice skating or playing games with them. It is time spent reading a story to or with them. It is time spent helping them with their homework or doing chores around the house with them. It is time spent during the entire cycle of your children’s lives from infant to old age. Parent child time will change as our children grow older, but the quality of the time will always depend on the interaction that we have with them. Parents need to guide, counsel, and provide role models for their children and not just strive to be friends with their children.
Questions to Reflect On:
How much time do you spend doing things with your children, with your grandchildren? Do you read to your children, play games with them, take walks with them? How much quality time do your spend with your children versus just “busy” time? What could you do to increase the quality of the time that you spend with your children and with your family? Would this improve your life or their lives?
Aging Capriciously 