Forging the ties that bind

> Spending quality time with your children when they are growing up helps to cement that emotional bond that often lasts a lifetime

Being there for our children extends beyond physical proximity.

For instance, a housewife who is home with the children will not interact much with them if she is always playing Candy Crush on her smartphone, or is pre-occupied with other pursuits.

And it is worse when her children ask her to play with them, and she brushes them off with: “Ask kakak to play with you.”

If you are a working parent, you’d understandably have limited time to spend with your children.

But give them your attention at night, during weekends and public holidays. Play with them, talk with them. Make those moments count.

American writer Robert Brault hit the nail on the head when he wrote: “Enjoy the little things, for one day, you may look back and realise they were the big things.”

Raising children involves more than just providing physical sustenance and a good education. It is also about doing little things together, and talking about weighty issues and trivial stuff.

Imagine baking a macaroni pie. You assemble the onions, meat, carrots and boiled macaroni in the casserole dish.

Then you pour in the eggs to bind the ingredients together. Without the eggs, the pie would not hold its shape.

The meat, vegetables, and macaroni are the important elements such as sustenance and education; the eggs that bind everything together is the time spent as a family unit in cementing the relationship.

And to the Jeannies out there, I want to quote American author Robert Fulghum: “Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”

Your children will be watching and learning from you. Do you want them to treat you the way you have treated your own parents?

Lydia Teh is a mother of four and author of nine books, including the latest, Cow Sense for Young People. Send comments to lifestyle.lydia@ thesundaily.com.