Liz and Tom Callahan always eat dinner with their sons Greg, 7, and Grant, 21 months.
“It’s an important time to connect,” said Liz Callahan, who, like her husband, works full time. “Even if we have a meeting that night, we work it out so we sit down together, even if it’s brief.”
The Callahans also plan weekly one-on-one activities with each of their boys and try to make Sunday afternoons family time for playing games, going for a walk or having a “tickle party,” she said.
For most busy families, parent-child time isn’t in long chunks but in bits snatched here and there during daily activities–while eating, doing chores or driving.
While many parents feel guilty or regret not being with their children more, surveys have found most parents make time with their children a priority.
Just under half of parents cited spending time with their kids as an activity that takes a lot of their time during the week, according to a survey of 400 Washington state parents conducted last spring by Families Northwest. (Working topped the list and housework came in behind time with children).
While parents said they wished they had more, they spend a “good amount” of time together already, said Jeff Kemp, executive director of Families Northwest, a conservative nonprofit organization that promotes families and marriage.
Parents of children younger than 5 were most likely to play with their children, while they spent more time reading to children ages 6 to 9, the survey found. With teenagers, talking is the most common parent-child activity.
However, many parents discount everyday activities and only view “Kodak moments” as quality time with their kids, Kemp said.
“Every moment can be a good moment without being a significant, life-changing event,” he said, citing parents reading to kids before bed or wrestling in the living room as examples. “Parents should appreciate all the time they have because it all counts.
“The key is what kind of emotional connection you make.”
Like many busy parents, Fawn Poblocki sees “car talk” as a way to stay in touch with son Michael, 7. “It’s quiet time in the car without any other distractions,” she said.
Indeed, more than a quarter of children spend more than one hour a day each weekday in the car with a parent, according to a national survey by Toyota of 1,200 parents. More than two-thirds said they talk about their day or their child’s thoughts and feelings while in the car; half discuss family problems.
Time together has to be a conscious effort, and meaningful “quality” time doesn’t happen without some “quantity”–that is, building a rapport with kids by simply being around, Kemp said.
Kemp, who has four sons, added, “play basketball with boys” to his personal-digital-assistant weekly calendar.
“If I write it down, then I see it,” he said. “Our pace of life is not going to slow down. People want spontaneous family joy, but if they don’t schedule time in, they miss out on what they care about most.”
