If you too are parents to small children, you’ll have to agree that the last thing we have the energy to do after an exhausting day of work is listen to their stories. All we really want to do is sit still, "reset" and relax. But even at such times, it is important to ask yourself: What about the kids? Have you ever taken note of how much time you devote to them during the day?
According to psychologist Natalya Sirotich, to strengthen the connection with your children - which will affect the relationship between you until adolescence and even after - you should devote at least 3 minutes a day. So what is the "3-minute" method and how does it work? Read more about it in the article below.
Everyday life in the present age causes us to endure so many stresses and pressures that in the end, all we want is just some peace and quiet, so sometimes we don’t pay attention to the really important things in our lives - our children. When we find some time to devote to them, few are the cases where they are given our full attention. In order for you to truly strengthen your relationship with your children which can give them confidence, try taking a crack at this method which states that you should spend at least 3 minutes a day with them. Each time you “meet up” with your kids, act as if you haven’t seen them in a very long time.
Do this even on stressful days and don’t give up, just find time you can devote only to them - it will take you only a few minutes. If you’ve picked them up from kindergarten or school, take advantage of this time and listen to what they have to say, and if you meet them at home, make sure to find each other, bend to their eye level if needed and give them a long hug. Ask them how their day went, if they had fun at school, and what else they did with their time. If you are at work most of the time, try to find at least one day out of the week when you can pick your children up from school and have a conversation with them. If they aren’t very talkative, start them off by telling them how your day was, this might help get them to start talking about themselves.
As we said earlier, we don’t usually have time for small talk during work-days, and even if our kids call to ask us a question, it’s usually short, matter-of-fact and doesn’t deal with our kid’s feelings or day. When you put time aside just for them it gives them a feeling of confidence and shows them that they are important to you. According to psychologist Natalya Sirotich, during the first moments of your encounter, children give you all the information they can remember, but as time goes by they forget more and more details, often the most important ones.
The consequences of ignoring the three-minute rule can vary, depending on the nature of each child. A child who does not have the opportunity to tell his or her parents everything when possible, will not be able to talk about important things and over time certain facts will seem to him or her as not important enough to talk about. In this case, parents may lose out on many significant issues in the child's development. Children of a different kind will continue to talk nonstop, recall new details all the time and eventually have a perfect story, but the chances that parents of such a child will not hear many things is very high, because at some point the child becomes "background noise" and their parents will ignore them without even noticing.
It's important to note that the 3-minute rule does not mean that you need to spend only 3 minutes a day with your children, but that you have to spend this time immediately when first seeing them at the end of the day to make sure they share everything they want to share about their day.
