Category: Parents

In about a month and a half, life is going to change for us in a big way. But also in the smallest of ways. We’re going to become parents. This occasion, for many, is exciting, anxiety-provoking, thrilling and stressful. I’m sure that like the billions who have gone before us, we will be overwhelmed and overjoyed. The one “problem” is that after so many years of dealing with other people’s kids, now I’m going to have my own to deal with.

And since I’m an “expert” at kid-dealing, this almost certainly means that I will be eating my words for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I can picture it now:

Smarty pants bystander: “What’s your kid’s bedtime routine?”

Me: “Um…. I know we’re supposed to have one, but it’s hard to get her to go down around the same time every night. She doesn’t seem to like going to bed without a lot of help from me :/”

Well-meaning friend: “What’s the best way to deal with a child who won’t eat much? Ahem, your child…”

Me: “I once would have said, continue to fight the good fight and introduce them to more foods. After all, what’s for dinner is what’s for dinner. Now I just hope she’ll grow out of it and cut all of her food into the shape of a triceratops. It’s a grueling job, but it’s motivated by love (and the avoidance of conflict).”

Pre-parent Katie: “Katie, did you just give in to that temper tantrum?”

Me: “Shut up old Katie. You just don’t know what it’s like. When she was theoretical, you had it all figured out! But now she’s real!!!!!”

I’m well aware of this impending possibility. Part of me hopes that by admitting it aloud, I’ll magically avoid it and end up scoffing at my self-doubt. What’s better than proving yourself wrong when you’re doubting yourself? I knew I could do it all along!! Take that Katie!

But just in case, I’ve got my knife and fork ready.

I walk into a room looking for a book. There is a kid in the room already. He immediately looks up at me and says, “What?!” I have two dichotomous mental reactions to this.

#1 What are you hiding?

And the more important…

#2 Does my appearance on the scene so often indicate an end to fun that it is often met with trepidation and suspicion?

Sigh. Maybe a little over the top, but it was made clear to me again recently, so I’ve been pondering it.

My brother is visiting us on his own for the first time. I picked him up from the airport yesterday to begin his one week stay. On the way home, he began fiddling with his many sets of headphones. If you’ve ever met him, you may understand his love of headphones. His collection is a point of contention at my parents’ house. He has so many and they get lost or broken often enough that his obsession with them can sometimes cause headaches for everyone.

As he fiddled, I noticed him sneaking nervous peeks at me while I drove. I kept my eyes on the road because I didn’t mind if he fiddled with his stuff (take it out, wind it up, switch it from hand to hand, put it back, repeat). But he’s pretty conditioned to be wary of his obsessive headphone actions. He’s used to being told that he can only bring one pair with him or to take them out while he’s walking somewhere, etc. So he was quick to say “What?!” to me if I looked at him because he was ready to be scolded.

I understand this reaction because I have elicited it in from a few kids in my day. Makes me wonder if a few too many of my interactions with them are to ask them to do or not do something or get ready to leave or put their toys away or boss them in some other way. I can understand why they would sometimes be suspicious of my entry. What?!

I’ll work to keep this in mind as my brother’s visit continues. I don’t want him to feel on the spot just because I look at him. I’ll try not to “check on him” and work to boss him a little less. He is on vacation after all.

I wasn’t alive 50 years ago. But I would venture to say that the average life has gotten busier since then. More women work out of the house. We have far more things to distract us and suck up our time (TV, smarty-pants phones, games, the INTERNET!!). There’s just so much to do and who can afford a cook? On top of all of our other responsibilities, we are also supposed to spend time with our kids…and not just regular old time, but Quality Time.

First question, what is quality time? And second, how do we turn regular time into quality time?

What is quality time?

I don’t have an exact definition of q-t, but I do think that I know some characteristics of what it is and what it isn’t.

1. Q-T can be quiet time.

Quality time doesn’t have to be filled with lots of activity, boisterousness or even laughter (though laughing can be a good ingredient for other q-t). Reading a book together, snuggling, working together on a project or just simply being in the same room and accessible to each other can be great ways to spend quality time.

2. Q-T can happen in small bursts.

Quality time sometimes occurs in just an instant- a small interaction before a child goes out to play or the 5 minutes before you sit down to pay bills. Focusing on making meaning out of long interactions can sometimes curtail the actual q-t that happens as a result. It doesn’t have to last forever. Not all of our time spent together will be “quality,” but there may be moments of it throughout our longer interactions. Look for and cherish these. Those little bursts always make me smile the most…when they take me a little by surprise.

3. Q-T can happen in strange places.

When I’m in the car driving kids around, I often find myself trying to make conversation or induce some quality time. That’s because I have had plenty of good, funny moments with kids in the car. We’re all there and though I am focused on driving, I’m also somewhat of a captive audience, as are they. The bathtub is another great place. The dinner table. The kitchen. On the back step, eating popsicles together. Going on a walk. When we’re both/all focused on nothing or simply the world around us, we might just find ourselves having some quality time with the people around us.

How do we turn regular time into quality time?

Uh oh. A tough question…for me to answer and I’m the one who posed it.

I think that trying to turn one into the other can sometimes be a hindrance to actual quality time. Have you ever planned something for a child that you thought they would love, only to be faced with the reality of their under or overwhelmed face (overwhelmed…but not in a good way)? Sometimes I think they can smell the desperation on us just like dogs can. “I just want this day to be perfect” thinks Mom to herself, but loudly enough that her child can hear it.

We can certainly try to invite q-t into our day by doing a special activity or inviting a child to come on an errand with us (just us two!), but I think that the best way to get some actual quality time out of these interactions is to keep our expectations a little low. Don’t try to force the issue. Don’t think that talk about feelings and what’s going on at school are necessary ingredients to q-t. Sometimes it can just be a wink or a laugh or a squeeze of the hand. Treasure those 30 seconds and then go back to being regular. Tell them that you love the joke they told you or that sometimes it’s fun to have something special just between the two of you and then let it be.

I know it’s difficult not to want every interaction to be meaningful and memorable, but quality time seems to unfold of its own accord and trying to force it into the light might just scare it back into it’s hole.

So, I recently moved…from Baltimore to Oakland, California. Life has been a little upside down for the past weeks and my contact with kids has been scarce <sniff>. But lucky for me, I got to share in some borrowed family time on my journey westward. It was wonderful. I got to spend time with some lovely people and three lovely kids. I didn’t really realize that I was missing this, until I came upon it in the woods around Lake Tahoe.

At the end of our too-short stay, I got to play some games with a 5-year old. Go Fish and checkers were both new to him and he was eager to flex his game-y muscles with an unsuspecting and unknown adult. If you don’t know, adults are sometimes more fun for kids to play with because they tend to be more malleable other than kids. When a child wants to use their imagination and make up the rules to their own game, adults will be most likely not to interfere with their laid plans. Other kids will have ideas of their own. Boo. Don’t they know who is captaining this ship? Reasonably then, this young man was under the impression that he was in charge of whatever game we were playing.

Sadly though, I have some rules of my own when playing games with kids.

#1 Rules need to be agreed upon by both parties BEFORE THE GAME BEGINS

Raise your hand if you have ever gotten halfway through a game with a kid and they decide that now is the time to switch the rules, mostly in order to benefit their quest for glory. I just raised my hand and I’m writing this in a public place. I entered into a game of Go Fish without realizing that I should have made my position on rule changing clear. My bad. Next game we play though, I’ll remember.

Before we began checkers, I said that I would love to play as long as all of the rules were decided upon before the game began. Once the game started, the rules were essentially “closed.” We dithered a little bit, but basically ended up with the regular rules to checkers. Cool. I’m not good at this game, but I can get behind that. And so it began. Not long into the game, this “rule” was challenged. Some crazy jumps were taken and my black checkers were significantly diminished. Hmm. I restated my earlier point that the rules had been agreed upon and that they were closed. I got some imaginary reasoning in response and so I had to sit and wait while he decided what to do. Which leads me to rule number 2…

#2 If we’re not going to play by the rules that we agreed upon, then I can’t play with you

Sorry to “take my ball and go home,” but we had a meeting prior to checkers being played. Once I worked to uphold this rule, he was a little at a loss as to how to proceed. So I set the timer on my phone and said that if he could make a real move before it went off, then I could keep on playing. If not, then I would have to stop. Luckily, I didn’t have to walk away, but I was more than prepared to. I did have to get going and did I mention that I’m not that good at checkers…

It’s not poor sportsmanship to take this tack. Forgive me, but it’s poor sportsmanship to change the rules in the middle of the game. Once the boundaries were set and mutually abided by, we could both be good “sportsmen” and enjoy playing checkers with each other…which is exactly what happened. We worked together even while competing with each other. He felt a part of things while not being the mad dictator.

That young man taught me a valuable lesson that day. Though maybe I had already known it somewhere subconsciously, it’s nice to be reminded that it’s not really fair to change the rules in the middle of the game.