The heart of parenting : Quality time

One of the most important jobs a parent has to do is to bond with their child. And as they grow older, this becomes more and more important, not less.

When your child is young (a relative term, but let's use Primary school as a filtering criterion here), the reason for bonding is to build a foundation of trust and dependence. Dependence sounds like a bad word, but when it comes to raising a child, I think it is good and necessary - it means they can literally depend and rely on you, in their childhood limitations and vulnerabilities, you will be that immovable rock - a bringer of both joy and discipline to set up their journey of life. If this foundation is not attempted to be set, anything else built on top would be shakey and unstable - minimally I would say what is needed at this stage is physical presence and involvement. It could be just running around at the park or being present at school performances, cheering them on.

As they grow older (Secondary school and beyond), you literally have to shift from quantity to quality given their (not yours) tight schedule and rushed projects. You're no longer playing catch in the park, although that might happen from time to time, but having more conversations and thought-provoking and insightful discussions over meals and in the car.

It's not easy. Parent-child conversations (especially among Asians) are either very formal and shallow (any homework?) or fraught with annoyance and sarcasm (why is your room always in such a mess?) We should be aiming for a more insightful line of questioning which would provoke unpredictable answers from your kids - only then would you be able to learn more about them (what are your thoughts about children and discipline?)

Of course, they always (with me it seems) have the option of closing their eyes and pretending to sleep.