Spending Time with our children is Love

Someone send me an article which I find is very meaningful to share with others. Its about how we express love to our children, doing all possible things such as buying expensive toys, enroll them in all sorts of classes, equipped them with high tech equipments such as computer and hand phone etc to keep them occupied. By doing so, we think we had given them a head start with all the luxurious things and they are going to appreciate our love forever. But little as we know that the children filled with materialistic rewards couldn't feel the 'Love' we invested. I used to talk to the teens about how they feel about their parents; "I doubt if they ever love me, their friends are more important than me. Many times my dad just went off whenever his friends calls, but for me he always say 'no time'."

We always take thing for granted. When I was 30's and my eldest son was 13, I was working towards further my education to university and my son said this to me,"You are going to leave us when we need you the most, You may become somebody one day but what will we become. You wouldn't like your children to be nobody. " For this reason, I had postponed the idea and dragged on with my daily routines, spent most of the time with them. Apart from my career as a teacher ,I did nothing as a side job though our earning could barely survive. It was much more later when I was 43, I pursue my degree the same year my son entered university. The same year we graduated too.

Whenever I asked the parents whether they talk to their children, "Oh yes, of course, I always advice them a lot at the dinner table I said................" They always go on repeating every words they spoke to their children to me, if I don't cut in, it might take 1 hour to end the replay slot. The parents usually got highly inspired and drifted away when talking about their advices to their children. When finally I asked," Was it effective?" With eyes whithered, they said "No, they wouldn't listen." It must be something lacking in their relationship that cause this break down. Its the 'bonding' , there is no natural bonding between father and son, thus the father couldn't anyway reach the internal feeling of the children. And 'bonding' only build up through years of 'time' invested on them. Most of the time the parents spend with their children is used up in giving advices for things of the past, now and future. Though advices is necessary sometimes,but too much would be nauseous. The advices is only effective only when the parents be the role model himself. Parents advice their children not to smoke while they themselves do so. Parents want their children to read a lot while they themselves never read a book for years. Parents want the children to respect the elders while they themselves never have hearts for their own folks. Finally tons of advice has become nuisance sound that the children hated so much, whenever you started they want to fly off.

The children need time with you when their social skill start to develop. They want us to play with them, talk to them, laughing together, go outing and happiness together. As they grow older they want us to understand their needs, give them more privacy, cultivate their interests, build up their self confidence, encourage them and always be available whenever they need us. I used to take my children to go touring around during the holidays , and there I have my opportunity to build up our relationship, like I said ,the bonding. I listen to their stories and enjoy their jokes. We had great time together, a lot. During bad time whenever there's problem, I am sitting beside, holding his hand and lending my shoulder to cry. This is the time to give encouragement, not advices. Never overwhelm to protect them till you cannot tolerate their mistakes . Children learns from mistakes. Let you be the first person to go to whenever they have problems. Don' try to solve every problems they have, sometime they only need a listening ear.

So its worth to invest our time in them. Let them feel that they are more important compare to your friends, your business and anything else in this world. I know everybody love their children , but if the children couldn't feel your loves, you have to think another way out. Some parents took short cuts by just scolding them for being ungrateful to their love. But whats the point, they want the thing that you couldn't give them, that's the TIME.