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Dr. Wade Horn on Kids:

Time With Children Is Investment in Future

By Dr. Wade F. Horn

http://www.jewishworldreview.com --

Q: Is it just my imagination, or are parents spending less time with their kids these days?

A: It's not your imagination. Parents today spend roughly 40 percent less time with their children than did parents a generation ago. According to one survey, in 1965, parents spent on average about 30 hours per week with their kids. By 1985, parent-child interaction had dropped to just 17 hours per week.

Another study found that almost 20 percent of children in grades six through 12 had not had a good conversation lasting for at least 10 minutes with at least one of their parents in more than a month. A poll for the National Parenting Association found that 36% of parents do not give any time to their kids' extracurricular activities.

There are a number of reasons for this decrease in parent-child time. One of the biggest factors is the dramatic increase in the number of single parent households. Studies consistently find that children whose parents separate or divorce have less parental involvement and are monitored less closely than peers whose parents remain married.

Indeed, single mothers, on average, spend roughly one-third less time each week than married mothers in primary child care activities such as dressing, feeding, chauffeuring, talking, playing or helping with homework.

This, of course, is not very surprising. When there are two parents in the home, it is possible for one parent to be helping little Johnny with his homework or reading little Janey a bedtime story while the other is doing the dishes. With only one parent in the home, time spent doing non-interactive household chores is time not available to be spent interacting with the kids.

A second reason for the decline in family time is the increase in two-earner households. In the days of Ozzie and Harriet (i.e., when I was growing up), many two-parent families only had one adult in the paid labor force. The other stayed home and did such things as making breakfast for the children, helping them with their homework after school, and volunteering in their child's classroom.

The combination of high taxes and today's consumer culture has led many families to believe that it is necessary to send both parents into the paid labor force. When both parents are working outside the home, they are often too exhausted after a long day at the office to do anything but necessary household chores.

As a result, too many parents believe they can substitute "stuff" for time with the kids. Indeed, a recent phone survey of over 3,200 adults and children found that over half of the adults surveyed say it is common for parents to equate buying things for their children to caring for them.

The biggest thief of family time, however, is something we have been inviting into our homes with increasing frequency over the past fifty years: television. One study found that children between the ages of 6 and 11 watch an average of 23 hours of television per week and teenagers watch an average of 21 hours of television per week. In contrast, teenagers spend only 35 minutes per week talking with their fathers.

It is just not possible to have the television on for three to four hours per day and expect to have time for any meaningful interaction with the kids. Unfortunately, when faced with the choice of TV or time with the kids, too often parents choose TV.

The real question is: Does any of this matter?

Some counsel that decreasing family time is not something about which we ought to be very concerned. So long as the time we do give our kids is of sufficient "quality," some argue, we don't have to worry all that much about "quantity."

Sounds good, doesn't it? Just grab a few minutes here or there of good old "quality time" and the kids will be alright. And besides, it's peers that really matter, not parents, right?

Well, wrong. Research consistently shows that the most important protector against children developing serious problems is the quality of the relationship they have with their parents. A recent national study involving over 100,000 adolescents, for example, found that the most important factor associated with the avoidance of such high risk behaviors as alcohol and illicit drug use, smoking, violence, and sexual activity was -- you guessed it -- connectedness with one's parents.

And just how do children develop "connectedness" with their parents? It takes time. Why? Because when we give time to our children, we communicate in the clearest way possible that we care about them. Kids, it seems, spell "love" T-I-M-E.

But shouldn't the time we spend with our kids be of high quality? Of course. But time is like oxygen. The quality of the oxygen that we breath matters, but so does the quantity. Brief sips of high quality oxygen here or there won't keep you alive for very long. And neither will large quantities of polluted oxygen. What we need is both.

And so it is with children. The truth is children are not light switches. When it comes to time, quantity is important precisely because it is our children, and not us, who determine whether or not a particular moment will prove to be important. When that moment comes, you don't want to miss it; no matter how entertaining the latest TV sitcom might seem to be.

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