Quality time and space

Moving through the Love Languages, we come to a pretty obvious one of "quality time".  10 minutes, 1-2x per day per child is what I strive for with my own three children.  Some days I do better than others.

We have also implemented alternating dates with either parent once per month.  So this month my sons will each have a date with me and my daughter will have a date with dad and then next month we switch kids.

On the flip side of quality time is quality space for our kids to process emotions (usually negative ones) without us interfering with solutions to fix, corrections or criticism.

There needs to be a space that is held open for our children to just feel the emotion.

As parents, we should not want the feeling to hurry up (in the case of negative emotions) nor slow down (with positive ones).  Be in it for what it is right now.

Your job is to create this space for your child to feel your love and empathy.

Empathy is the human connection we can share relating to an EMOTION underlying any EXPERIENCE, even if it is an experience you have not had (or can remember).  This requires us as adults to be o.k. with the full spectrum of emotions, the good and the bad....the happy and the sad...the excited and the frustrated.  And to work to be present with our child with that feeling, even when we would rather just move on.

A word of caution about moving on when your child is still in the middle of it....the child can sense that their emotion is not wanted or should not be displayed.  Over time, this leads to an inability to acknowledge emotions and it leads to surprising feelings or reacting to them.  I know, because this is how I spent my youth.  I feel like I started to feel emotions outside of happy or crying, sometime in my thirties.  I am now 43 and I am working hard to stay present with all of my emotions as well as recognize those in my children.  Over the years, I have been guilty of pushing my child through an emotion to get back to happy, merely because I was uncomfortable.  I am working on this and I invite you to notice if this is hidden intention of yours, and to be present with your child both with quality time and space.