Posted on 11/19/2021
In our instant-gratifcation-driven society, we like quick fixes, don't we? If only that "Easy Button" from Staples really did something! But there is no magic wand, nothing you can put in your Amazon cart, no instant download for recovering from trauma. Whether it's the after-effects of the pandemic or any other adverse childhood experience, these things all take one thing we often cringe to consider: time. No matter how high-tech or efficient we are, time is the one resource we cannot find a way to make more of. But, in a way, we kind of can.
Evaluating Quality vs. Quantity Time with Our Kids
I know we hear a lot about quality time in our culture, and it sounds great. Sure, we need to turn off the screens and take time to really look into our children's eyes, ask insightful questions, and listen to the answers. But also? We cannot manufacture the kind of connecting it will take to help them process through difficulties - either the daily stuff or the traumatic stuff that's there after the big-bad-year we've all experienced. Sometimes we can schedule an hour of one-on-one time in our busy week and hit the jackpot in that that hour turns out to be just the right time when our child wants to open up and is in the mode to really make some strides. (The same is true for a once-a-week meeting with a professional counselor or therapist, by the way.)
Do you know what we can do to stack the odds in our favor, promoting quality time and beyond-the-surface conversations with your kids? Schedule greater quantities of time with our kids. This doesn't always have to be without activity or to-do's. It can be as simple as going grocery shopping together or painting the fence or cleaning the windows. It can be as fun as going to a park or day trip or vacation. But the key is this: you're spending time together, without other people, where your child is your main person with whom you're interacting. Amid a quantity of family time, this strategy is more likely to generate snippets of quality time.
Discovering Your Secret Sauce: Family Dinners
Did you know that 80% of teens actually name family dinner as the time they're mostly likely to talk with their parents and also rank it highly on the list of activities they enjoy? Parenting blogs aren't the only places where you can read about this; Harvard Graduate School of Education has validated this concept as well. And you certainly don't need a degree from an ivy league university to understand or implement this simple practice! According to Anne Fishel, executive director of the Family Dinner Project, the significance of this simple practice cannot be overstated. "I sort of half joke that I could be out of business if more families had regular family dinners," she says.
We'll discuss more of the how-to of family dinners - and decluttering the schedule to allow for them - in our next post in this series.
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