Bonding Moments with Your Children

As parents, we are tied up with so many responsibilities. We are so busy with our respective jobs because we need to earn a keep. Our jobs also make a lot of difference on our personal growth and self-worth.

At home, there are the chores that await us. It is an endless list of things to do. The cooking, the laundry, all the cleaning that has to be done. We need to do all sorts of errands. To go to the grocery, the bank to pay the bills, or attend important meetings here and there to name a few.

Our children, on the other hand, have their academic lives to attend to. They have daily homework, projects, reports. Extra-curricular activities also take a lot of their time. From dancing, to sports, to art or music classes.

It is important, however, that we provide quality time for our children. It would be unfortunate when we see our children all grown up, and not wanting of our company. Soon, they will be too involved with their friends and would prefer to be in their own worlds.

I have an eight year-old son, and I pick him up from school. From the time that he is off from school to eating his snacks and then doing his homework, we are together. I have realized that I can make the most of this time by doing some fun stuff together and make this our bonding moments. Here are some tips I can share:

1. Create your own game. From his school, we walk home. It would take us about 10 minutes to reach our place. My 3rd grader loves these walks. He is quite a chatterbox, so I figured that we could maximize this by doing our own trivia game while walking.

When Spider man started a few years ago, every boy was so much into this superhero, including my son of course. The fire of interest sort of died a bit, but for some reason, he is so much into Spider man again. So we both came up with this special game of trivia about the two Spider man films (with Tobey Maguire as the lead). So while walking, we would take turns in asking questions about the characters, the plot, even some catchy lines from both movies. To make things more interesting, he has added features of the Play station game of Spider man to our set of trivia questions.

We have done the same game using other movies and play station station games like Shrek, Madagascar, and the Polar Express. I know that he really gets excited every time we do this.

2. News time. I let him take a little snack when we get home. So while nibbling on crackers or fruits, he pretends that he has a broadsheet and tells me about things from school. He has a front page news with the juiciest news of the day, naturally. He even tells me that he has to open his newspaper and relate more of the happenings at school. He tells me about whatever very interesting he learned in Science (his favorite subject of all), Geography, Language, etc. He is so fond of discovering new words, and he shares this with me. Some of his classmates would be part of the Features columns. He tells me who was sent to the Principal's office, or who was acknowledged for his or her good answer during discussion time.

3. Be around during homework time. After snacks, he knows that he has to hit the books. I sit next to him and let him do the math and spelling homework first. He has a Read & Respond activity where he has to read a chapter or two from a book of his choice. An adult has to listen while he reads aloud. So I listen to him read and summarize what he has read. After this oral activity, he has to write down his summary. Although this is a school work, listening to him means a lot to him. Being able to appreciate his abilities and giving him some help here and there is part of our bonding moment. When he needs to color or cut or finish a few more school work, I can already face the computer and start going to my inbox. Still, he appreciates my presence.

4. Exercise together. My son usually has sports outside. My husband would also take him along when he plays tennis or basketball. I got him a dance mat, the kind that you would attach to your TV set. You have to follow the dance steps by hitting on the arrows on the mat. He likes it if we dance together. Only one person at a time could use the mat, so if he is on it doing his grooves, I follow the steps even just on the floor. He gives me my turn so I make him dance next to me on the floor while I am on the mat. It is just fun time for us.

Our lives are really full of so many important and necessary tasks. Sometimes we fell that there is no time for the other things that we want to do. Or we could not find time at all. But I think we could try to squeeze in a few minutes here and there when we really like to do something. Spending meaningful time with our kids, is something we should not only like, but it is part of our role as parents. It is a huge responsibility to rear this children, but we could always try our best to find the means to do so. Bonding moments with them is very necessary because when we do this they feel loved, secure and given importance. It is essential because it would really strengthen our relationships with our precious ones.