We visited the Conroe Lake Park a couple days ago - it was a bit chilly and windy, so the kids are wearing their favorite jackets (given to them by Great Aunt Suzie two Christmas' ago!). I was recently reading an article by Mike Pearl (the day before we went to the park) titled 12 Parenting Essentials and this one really struck me:
6. Time
Not just “quality time” but quantity time. Know this, that when you are not spending time with your children, someone else is. When you received your child into this world, it was like receiving a beautiful book with all blank pages. Like a daily planner, each fifteen-minute interval has an empty line beside it. Your child’s history is not yet written. The sum total of life is the accumulation of minutes—minutes listening to someone, talking to someone, seeing or hearing something said by another, or minutes consumed watching a video produced by a disreputable character from Hollywood. Everyday, you write in that book, line by line; or you take your child to a baby sitter or to school, and you turn the book over to someone else, and they too write into your child’s life. The hour you spend with your child is not more influential than the hour someone else spends. Value time enough to spend it on your children.
Not just “quality time” but quantity time. Know this, that when you are not spending time with your children, someone else is. When you received your child into this world, it was like receiving a beautiful book with all blank pages. Like a daily planner, each fifteen-minute interval has an empty line beside it. Your child’s history is not yet written. The sum total of life is the accumulation of minutes—minutes listening to someone, talking to someone, seeing or hearing something said by another, or minutes consumed watching a video produced by a disreputable character from Hollywood. Everyday, you write in that book, line by line; or you take your child to a baby sitter or to school, and you turn the book over to someone else, and they too write into your child’s life. The hour you spend with your child is not more influential than the hour someone else spends. Value time enough to spend it on your children.
Then today I am reading another one of his articles and this pops out at me:
Where the TV with its soap operas once stole the children’s mothers, it is now the web. Mothers surf and children suffer. They learn to be quiet, to not bother. In time they won’t bother with anything. Spend your hours talking and visiting with your friends instead of talking with your 2-year-old and your 2-year-old will not grow up to be your friend.
And once again I realize my kids are sometimes "Computer Orphans" - why is it we as mothers get so caught up in the computer? I can tell when I spend time on the computer that the kids behavior is not good and then the day just goes downhill from there. So, once again, it is time for me to take a computer sabbatical :)
I have been on a lot less lately, but I believe one night a week, after they go to bed, should be plenty for me - anyone else want to join me?
You can view these articles in their entirety here -
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