Bonding with the child has become the utmost concern for all the parents these days. Irrespective of whether the mom is staying at home or working, her routine is also as packed as other members of the family. Amidst all those meeting deadlines, and delivering/completing projects on time, the interpersonal relationships at the home front are taking a big toll in most of the families.
Thanks to the International lockdown, we as a family got a chance to understand and relish the family time together. Now that most of the countries are opening up slowly, it’s time to carry forward the lessons we learned during the lockdown even into the future. Given below are the daily routines that we incorporated during the lockdown, which we are going to practice daily in the future.
- Exercise/Pray together: We have this habit of praying together or exercising together every day based on the mood of our child. There are days when he would be still in a drowsy mood and wouldn’t want to get ready for the school in time. So, exercising on that day together would put our child back into high spirits. Even playing the bhajan songs on the mobile would do the trick, as busy weekday mornings will not leave time for the elaborate prayers at home.
- Eat together: The family that eats together stays together is the age-old adage, which holds true even in this age. Due to our current competitive environment, it would be tough for the parents and children to assemble together for all three meals in a day. But having breakfast together before the start of the busy day is the easiest way to bond together and plan the day for the entire family.
- Play together: Playing together need not be the physical outside play for the school-going children. While driving in the car, or while waiting at any place, one can play a lot of brain teasers with the children. Playing brain teaser games like riddles, word builder, and a host of other vocabulary building games with not much preparation from the parent’s side is the sure-shot conversation starter. You can read my article regarding this on my blog.
- Watch together: Most of the children love to watch movies, cartoon series, or even youtube videos. I make it a habit to watch at least 10 minutes along with my kid. This practice of watching their favorite series together with them gets us connected with each other. The child would start opening up more easily to us.
- Read together: Children of all ages love stories. And reading aloud to children even after they start reading would forge the bond with them. Those are the memories that the children would carry forward into the future.
It depends on individual circumstances and family situations to decide how to spend time with your child. But, by following the above-mentioned routines the connections with the child get established automatically, without taking much effort from our side as the parents.
Children always love routines and if there is any deviation from the routines then there are ready erupt and we need to explain upfront about any changes to the routines. So that’s the reason why, even on a busy day, we try to follow at least 3 out of the 5 of the above-mentioned activities together.
Author’s Note: I am a parenting blogger and a crazy Montessorian who writes about my experiences on Parenting and about my experiments and learnings on the Montessori Education system. My blogs are at:
Shravmusings: My Kid’s window to the World
MommyShravmusings: My Parenting and Books Blog
