How to Spend Quality Time with Your Child

1. Turn off the TV, put down that magazine article you were reading, get off the internet. Finish the laundry a little later.

2. Set aside twenty minutes a day to play whatever your child wants, not what you want. And remember, no video or computer games, please!

3. Let your child take the lead. If your son wants to run around the yard wearing his favorite tablecloth "cape" playing superhero, join him! Offer to be his side kick. Ask him what role you are supposed to play. Ask him to show you what his superpowers are.

4. Remember that it is through play that children are able to express and work out diverse emotions, from being scared and helpless to powerful and omnipotent. By trying out different types of feelings and roles, children develop a better sense of self and how they fit into the world.

5. Play also teaches your child specific skills such as creative problem solving and logical thinking. Help him to build bridges within the play. A simple way to do that is by asking, "And then what?" or "Now what's gonna happen?" or "What do we do now?" But, let him be the one to determine what, exactly, that should be: "Show me!"

6. Be willing to enter your child's world according to the rules governing the play he has initiated. By doing so, you demonstrate that you know how to honor him and his internal world, including the full range of his emotions and creativity.

Bottom line: By spending time in child-centered activity each day with your son or daughter, you will build a better, more loving and respectful relationship with your child.

And who doesn't want that?

Baby's Play

Recently, I went to visit my friend, Amy, and her new son, Sven, who was just seven weeks old. Amy was adjusting well, had her Excel sheets to track Sven's sleeping and eating cycles, and was thinking about the days when she would be able to get back to her Ironman training again.

Most of all, she was trying to get used to being a mom for the first time.

Amy held Sven confidently and chatted with me about the little things she was noticing about him -- how he had long arms and legs like her but his dad's nose and eyes, that he seemed to usually hold one arm up whenever he was feeding, and that he tended to prefer leaning against her on his left side.

She also told me that she heard that you were supposed to play with your baby but that because he was still so "little," she wasn't sure how to go about doing it.

Playing with a baby even seven weeks old is wonderful fun and not that difficult. It's about cooing back when baby coos, smiling at him, laughing, and making silly faces. It's about making sounds that he responds to with a gurgle, another coo, or a slight wiggle. Then you gurgle, coo, and wiggle your fingers back, both of you filled with mutual delight.

These kinds of interactions are so important for a child to have from his earliest weeks on.

A child develops a sense of self and of the world through his relationships. The back-and-forth between baby and mom or baby and whomever else is of importance to him helps baby learn to recognize different types of facial expressions, stimulates his brain growth, allows him to develop the ability to engage with another person, and lets him try out all the fancy new tricks that his little body can now perform -- like smile, hold up his hand in a fist, and let out a startlingly loud fart.

As Amy and I watched, played with Sven, and realized that day, it's also just pure fun.