Which is better? Quantity or Quality Time with your Children
67Quality Vs. Quantity Time
Quality Time with Kids or Quantity Time with Kids
Some people say, "it's not the quantity of time you spend with the kids, it's the quality." Others argue that mothers should stay at home with children and not work outside the home. The true answer comes down to the goal. What is it that you want for your children? Do you want your kid to like you? Do you want to have an influence? Do you want your kids to succeed in life?
The answer is... You are concerned about the wrong thing if you are worried about whether quality time or more time are more important. What you should be asking yourself is, "Who am I?"
Ask yourself these questions first:
- Am I a good influence on my children?
- Do I want to spend time with my children?
- How many books do I have in my house?
- Did I pass on good genes to my children?
That last two probably sound like a joke, but in a book called Freakonomics evidence is given for what you would not expect. The authors Levitt and Dubner found that parental reading time with kids mattered less than how many books were in the house. What this means is that it is more of a question of who you are than how or how much time you spend trying to mold and improve your children. If you are uneducated yourself, then your children aren't going to be educated by you. If you have an anger problem, then your children will learn that from you. Genetics play some part also, reinforcing the importance of who you are.
What Quality and Quantity of Influence are you
If you are not a good influence on your children, then it will be better for you to spend what time you have bettering yourself. Improve yourself so that you can give your children a better representation of a healthy, successful, loving parent.
If you are a good influence on your children, then you probably already know how to spend time with your children. You love them, so you are going to make the best decision for them. Relax and be confident that WHO you are is much more important in the long run, and you are doing your best.
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Comments
Lisa HW,
You are right about the synaptic pruning that happens with children. If children are raised in a state of constant disruption and terror, their brains will develop lower level cognitive abilities. Of course I actually believe that quality time and a lot of it is the best thing for kids. I wanted to bring up the point that who you are as a parent can determine outcomes on children. When I say who you are I mean everything from what you know, to how you behave, and how you spend time with kids. I am grateful to my parents for who they are and the limitless quality time they supplied me.
Blake, like you, I'm grateful for the two good parents I had. I very much agree that what we, parents, are as people is crucial. Too many parents expect children to be better people than they, the parents, are themselves.
Which is better Quantity or Quality Time with your Children
it Was very well written, I support you, welcome to my hub
Hey Blake,
The quality vs quantity argument may be a red herring. As if it were either/or, not both/and.
I think quantity has to meet a minimum threshold as a feature of quality. In other words the best quality in the world will not be quality if there is not enough of it. It would be like giving you a crumb of the most nutritious food in the world. You will still starve unless you get enough.
There is some research evidence that even abusive parenting is better than neglect.
Thank you for this.
I invite you to become a fan of mine and check out my hubs.
Rich_Id,
I agree with you. Both quality time and quantity of that time are important. It is an interesting that you have found that abusive parenting is possibly better than neglect. Neglect seems to me to be a form of abusive parenting, so I wonder what form of abuse has been compared to neglect. Neglect may be the absence of parenting, with would be the extreme of low quantity of time. In this case murdering your kid would be an extreme form of physical abuse. Obviously locking a kid in a closet for a year would really screw them up, but this is not simply neglect.
Thanks for the info and the thought. You gave me more to ponder, such as what forms of abuse are the worst? What forms are kids more resilient after experiencing? Is doing something, even if it is wrong better than doing nothing with a kid? These are big questions.
Blake, you have a lot of good points about time spent with children. Others who have commented have some good points. I think there needs to be good quanity time as well as quality time. I think it boils down to simply loving, nuruturing, providing, careing, encouraging, educating and in living life to do things the right way and to treat others the same. It is about fidelity in parental relationships. It is about honesty and integrity. Children learn all of these things from parents.
Hi Blake,
I'm a newcomer to hubbing and just came across this really good hub of yours.There is a saying ,with regard to parenting, that ''you can substitute for everything,except your presence''.As a mother of 10 (and Irish!),I believe this to be very true.
Itakins.
Are opinions are great but are there any studies that have been done in to compare?
Lisa HW says:
9 months ago
Blake, interesting thoughts; but a few points kind of struck me enough to want to comment: Parents need to know that it isn't enough to just want to spend time with children. "Quality time" may seem like an over-used/cliche term, but children need that one-on-one, high-quality, attention of having one and/or both parents really talk to them and really enjoy that the time with them. Maybe the question of "quality versis quantity" shouldn't be asked, but "How much quality time do I really spend is one that parents should never forget.
"How many books do I have in the house" maybe should be "Is reading a part of everyone's life in this family?" Having a lot of books in the house doesn't mean children are reading them.
Most importantly, as you may already know, in the first three years of a child's life his brain is actually forming synapses that will help determine not just what kind of person he is, but whether his immune system and stress response system work appropriately for the rest of his life. As the mother of two grown sons and one daughter, all of whom were very similar "types" of children when they were little, I have to say that I put little weight to "passing on good genes" when it comes to a child's personality, behavior, and sense of security. One of my sons was adopted from infancy from someone who wouldn't seem to have had "the best genes" in the world (established unfit parents, with a birth mother said to be of a "limited mental capacity"). When I think of the time, thought, study, planning, and care I put into raising my three children; and when I see the results of all that thought, work, care, and attention; I know they are not accidents of "good genes". I planned for the kind of parent I would be, and I followed through on my plans - and I got the kind of kids I wanted to have (complete with my own mini nature/nurture experiment).
I agree with your premise that the question shouldn't be quality time versus quantity time, but all that planning, thinking, working, talking, giving attention, etc., that I did with my three children was "quality time".