Upgrade Your Parenting in 2019 – Spend More Time With Your Kids

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Upgrade, you say? You must be joking and as for time, forget it. I am exhausted at the end of the day and never get through all the things on my to-do list.

Well, here are my 5 top ways to actually make more time so that we give our kids more quality time.

1. My top one is dinner time together. Maximize the time you spend together. That means no TV (why on earth would you invite a loud-mouthed commercial gadget to sit with you at dinner?).  All smartphones are switched off. Now, there is a time saver. No interruptions on our own phone so we can actually TALK and Listen to our kids.
2.  Listening to my kids. So, a recent trick is that as soon as I get through the door, I switch off my phone so that I can actually listen to what my kids are telling me. They might want to tell what happened at school. Again, I have carved out more time for them. The experts reckon that we do not listen enough. Nothing worse than greeting your kids with your face buried in your iPhone.
3. So, my kids are playing their own video games and I am on the computer answering emails. Do we even know what these games are like and do we know how to play them?  A great way is to carve out a few minutes fun to play with them.
4. Who is doing the chores? Me, of course!  Well, there are ways that we can get kids involved and ask them to do simple things and which they will get into the habit of doing. Prizes for the fastest and most efficient.  Even very small kids can learn to put toys away. We save time all round and that means we might have more time at the end of the day, to spend winding down and getting ready for bed.
5. Reading. Good old fashioned reading bedtime stories!  All the experts tell us that all the light from screens is going to keep us awake that much longer and also interfere with our own wake-sleep patterns. Switching off all media one hour before bedtime is the best way of doing that.

There are lots of other ways of saving time so that we can become more efficient and spend that time with our kids. Getting informed about delivery services, sharing collecting kids from sports and dance lessons, meal prep and planning ahead so that the morning rush is less hectic.

Now, does upgrading our parenting for 2019 seem such a difficult challenge? Try these tips and see how you get on.

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