>Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient.
Right and i would add, give them as many time with you as possible. Some of my greatest memory's was strolling around my dad workplace, when he had work todo. Children's don't need parent's as entertainment, but as adventure preparers.
Quality time with parents is important, of course, but we have become so focused on parental time that children are sacrificing solo time where they learn independence and initiative, and peer time where they learn to create their own identity and cooperate. Also, this places an unsustainable burden on parents who are expected to work full time as well as be parent, teacher, playmate, and cruise director for their kids.
> Children in the West today already spend more time with parents than at any point in the past
That's not what the article says. It compares to just 50 years ago, which is well into the industrialized world of two working parents in the office away from home.
Just a bit farther back, like with my grandparents era, kids grew up on the family farm, with their parents 24x7, learning by example from them.
How much of that "24x7" time was actually time spent together? When I was growing up kids and adults barely interacted with each other, most of the time kid(s) would be in one area of the house (or outside) doing their own thing and adult(s) would be somewhere else doing their own thing. This wasn't just my house either, it was normal.
Nowadays it's totally the opposite (and it's completely insane)
As I've grown older I've found it necessary and desirable to tell my own father about these moments, to assure him that he's done a great job for what he's done even if it was sometimes hard. Thanks for putting this in this perspective. I hope to remember it when I'm a father.
Right and i would add, give them as many time with you as possible. Some of my greatest memory's was strolling around my dad workplace, when he had work todo. Children's don't need parent's as entertainment, but as adventure preparers.