Fabulous Weekend Bonding
AdventureDad | July 31
Hope you had a great weekend. I had a fabulous time with my son and for the first time we did something together. Wait, let me explain. We do stuff together all the time. Of course we play, paint, read, and hit the playgrounds. We also do more practical things together. Like wash the car, cook, clean, move the lawn, and shovel snow. It’s great to do stuff together and I always appreciate his “help” but let’s be honest, I’m the one doing most of the work and he’s kind of my assistant. And it also requires lots of confidence since my assistant has a tendency to work slowly:-)) But this weekend we went for a bike ride together and it was awesome. It felt like we were doing something together and my son was able to function independently without my help. He was biking right next to me with a big smile on his face. I’m not sure if I’m making sense but it gave me a fantastic feeling of all the great times to look forward to as he grows up.
My son is soon turning two and a half so it’s kind of early to start using a real bike. But he quickly grew bored of the tricycle and out of the blue started biking on a friends bike one day. Of course with training wheels but I’m sure we’ll lose those soon. So we got him a real bike that he quickly fell in love with. He’s real careful, stops at street corners to look for cars, and knows how to brake. He has shown his skills while I’ve been running behind for many miles. Turns out this biking adventure is great exercise for a father as well:-) So this weekend I got on my mountain bike and he jumped on his own little bike and we went for a bike ride together. Fortunately, Sweden has little traffic and we stayed on sidewalks and in areas with little people around. We rode for a a few miles and he handled himself perfectly with the help of some occasional instructions from his father. It was such a great experience to see him right next to me and for a moment I didn’t look at him as a toddler, he seemed much older than that.
I guess what we were doing can be called “secondary activity” since I was doing something else while I was with my child. I read an article last week from a UK paper that discussed how much time, or rather little, parents in the United Kingdom spend with their kids. I talked about it on AdventureDad and it turns out that the parents spend a frightening 19 minutes a day with their kids. But they also mentioned that the parents spend another 16 minutes per day with their children as a “secondary activity”. Apparently that’s the description of spending time with your children while doing something else. I think the numbers are incredibly low, I would rather buy some nice plants instead of having children if I spend 19 minutes a day with them. But I have a problem with the term “secondary activity” sounding so negative since that’s my favorite way of spending time with my son. For me, doing practical things together with my son is great since he’s learning valuable things about life and develop some early habits that hopefully will stay with him for a long time. And that includes grocery shopping that gets a bad rap in the article. He likes to do it and I find it to be a basic social skill to have a well behaved kid that can be around other people. Same with vacuuming or doing stuff in the garden. He loves to be a part of it and we’re doing things together. A big plus with doing practical things together is also confidence building. My son is constantly solving small tasks and I have a feeling this has had a nice positive impact on his self confidence.
Perhaps I have misunderstood the whole parenting job but isn’t practical stuff a great way to interact with children? Watching TV, writing emails, or chatting on the phone with friends is not what I have in mind. Or forcing my son to do boring duties I don’t care for. There is no productive interaction going on there. My upbringing in Sweden could have something to do with my chosen approach to parenting. The fathers here are very involved and spend so much time with the kids that everyday tasks quickly become a great way to bond. Anyway, I feel that it works very well with my son and gives us lots of time together. Now if you excuse me, I have to go and oil his bike and get ready for the next ride. I can’t wait to go for another bike ride with him!
Have a nice week!
I totally agree - having the kids “help” with chores (or at least watching you do them), whether it be grocery-shopping or doing laundry or washing dishes or whatever, helps to introduce them to the activitiese and skills they’ll need for basic life when they get older. Plus, as you said, it introduces them to different kinds of social interactions with all sorts of people.
If shopping were looked at by the majority that way it would be nice. I work in a department store and more often than not either a) the parents are on the cell talking with friends about stuff their kids shouldn’t be hearing anyway while their child looks longingly out of the cart bored or b)let their kids rampage around, goofing off with them as if a dangerous department store where a play ground.
I guess secondary activity may be in the sense an activity in which you put your child second to doing the activity rather than working it around them.
I read your post on AdventureDad last week, and it hit me quite hard. While I agree with you wholeheartedly, I have to admit to failing in this department a fair bit.
I’m the sole provider in our household - my wife stays at home with the kids - so when I get home from work in the evening, I’m completely knackered and ready for bed. Maybe I should have a siesta and be a bit fresher for the kids, but it’s difficult. Especially with three so young, it’s hard to concentrate on any one child for any length of time.
I am not sure what you are talking about (although admittedly I did not see the article you mentioned), qualifies as a “secondary activity.” If it did, then everything short of sitting there talking to your child is a secondary activity.
As I see it, things that you are doing WITH you child are primary activities, things that you do when you just happen to have your children with you (grocery shopping, banking, running errands) where your focus is on the TASK and not the CHILD is a secondary activity.
I also ment to mention in agreeing with Tom about having children help with chores as a character building. But I don’t think that was exactly the focus or reasoning you meant.
Man, that’s a sporty little guy you’ve got there.
As far as the secondary activities go, I think one of the best ways to get to know someone, is to work with them. This goes for your kids as well.
My son is ‘helping’ remodel the bathroom these days, and it’s a lot of fun. When I’m doing something productive, I get into a state of heightened awareness. Then, after a while, I don’t really need to concentrate on what I’m doing as much, and I can just talk. Through the vehicle of physical work, I’ve formed some of the best friendships I’ve ever had. Plus, it just warms the cockles of my heart to hear my almost four year-old telling me that he going to get his safety glasses and safety shoes.
Oh, and did not know about it. Thanks for the information …