“My Time”

This post may contain affiliate links and we may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and teach my new mother self the importance of My Time.

By “My Time” I am not referring to time for my own self.

I am referring to the My Time that children need every day of their life.

When we become parents we all have a general idea of what a child needs: Unconditional love, food, water, diapers, clothes, diapers, home, more diapers, a well-rounded education, and opportunities to grow.

One thing that doesn’t quite make it onto the baby registry or the To Do list is the mental health and well-being of our children. 

Of course we all know our children need to develop social skills and self-confidence, receive positive discipline, and learn family value systems. But sometimes it’s hard to put together an actual plan of action to meet all of these goals.

To develop social skills you could establish routines of play dates, community events, and pre-school activities that consistently put your child in an environment to learn social skills together with their peers.

Enrolling them in pre-school, taking them to the park, or swapping play dates with another child are great ways to help them develop appropriate social skills.

Positive discipline and Family Value systems are unique to every family. There are endless books and experts on these topics but ultimately they have to be your personal decisions.

What is important to YOU and anyone else involved with raising your child?

These values that are extremely important to you will always come through in your teachings to your children because they are foremost in your mind.

Teaching Children Self Confidence can be one of the hardest things as a parent to teach, especially if you yourself struggle with self esteem.

It is true that children learn by example, but we are all human and even if we struggle with low self esteem as a parent, we can still teach our children to have a healthy self worth.

The most important aspect of self esteem that we need to teach our children is that every human individual has the same invaluable worth.

Our physical appearance, personality, physical and mental capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, illnesses, trials, triumphs, and failures DO NOT define our worth.

We do not possess the capability of increasing or decreasing our personal worth or anyone else’s.

It is a fixed infinite worth.

The world would have us believe otherwise, as is evident in every part of society.

Our children will face media campaigns, school playgrounds, high school parties, and lifestyle environments that will teach them that their value is determined by others or by their abilities.

But that is simply not true, and it will take serious effort on our part as parents to counter-teach what society is trying to teach them about their self worth.

One very effective and important way to help your child develop healthier self-esteem is by incorporating My Time into your daily routine.

Giving your child at least ten to thirty minutes of your undivided attention each day will help them validate their own self worth daily.

They know you are busy, and the significance of you giving them the gift of your time and attention is not lost on even young children.

There are a few important rules about My Time that every parent should know:

#1. Create a distraction-free environment before you begin My Time.

Turn off the TV, put your phone in the other room, don’t allow other children to interrupt, and FOCUS on the child in front of you.

#2. Let Your Child Choose What To Do.

This is very important for their self esteem and autonomy. By doing what they want to do, you validate that what they want is important.

Your child can choose to draw, read with you, watch ten minutes of a cartoon together, play a board game or card game (Uno anyone?), or sip hot cocoa at the kitchen table and just talk.

Note: This does not mean that you have no say or that you have to do something you absolutely hate every single day. If my kids want to do something that I truly dislike, I kindly explain that if it’s important to them it’s important to me (and we do it for a few days) but I ask them if we can also think of other things that we both like doing.

This also teaches them to be socially conscious of other’s needs. I literally get anxiety on the nights that my daughter wants to just sit at the table and sketch animals because I am NOT an artist and trying to draw a walrus stresses me out. So instead we find other art projects to work on or find other common interests like playing board games. 

#3. My Time has to be 100% a positive experience for both of you.

Period.

This is NOT the time to criticize your child or bring up things that you want him to work on.

Make an effort NOT to bring those things up or work them into the conversation.

My Time is ONLY a time to remind your child that you love them and to build them up.

Make an effort to work into the conversation the good that they accomplished today and any successes that they experienced.

Ask them how their day was and listen without lecturing.

Our children ABSOLUTELY LOVE My Time!!!

They love the individual attention, they love getting to choose what we do, and they love getting to ask questions and experience the real me answering them instead of me in stressed out Mommy mode.

Giving your child your best positive parent self for ten to thirty minutes a day will drastically improve your relationship with your child, help him learn life skills, and cement the behaviors and lifestyle choices you are trying to teach him.

Coincidentally, improving your relationship with your child also improves their decision making.

When they have a good relationship with you, they are more likely to follow your advice and make decisions that keeps them safe and healthy.

Of course it’s important to spend as much time as you possibly can giving your child your undivided but even giving them ten to thirty minutes of dedicated time every single day will make a profound impact on your child’s health and well-being.

We highly recommend that you start this daily routine with your child(ren) tonight!

We have six kids and it seemed overwhelming to work that much My Time into an already busy bedtime routine.

But as we have been taught, we did not say “We can’t do this! We don’t have that kind of time!”

Instead we asked ourselves “HOW can we do this? HOW can we create the time to do My Time with each of our children?”

I was surprised that the answers came quickly.

I realized that if we shuffled bedtimes a little and had our older children help us get younger kids ready, then we could get everyone ready for bed faster.

Our older children are more than happy to help because they are so excited for My Time every night.

It is the best motivation because they LOVE it!

Once everyone is ready for bed and laying down, we start My Time with our youngest children and go up in age order.

We don’t set a timer but spend around ten minutes with each child.

They have never argued or complained that another sibling got thirty more seconds than they did because they don’t want us to time them either.

By not setting a timer, we can hurry and finish our Uno game or the book we are reading so that we have a more natural experience.

Of course, this might not work for some families so you may have to play around with your My Time formula to see what works for your family.

Families and individuals are blessed by My Time because each member of the family needs to be strengthened individually every day so they can contribute their best self to the family.

My Time has helped with SO many struggles in our family including childhood anxiety and depression, Autism Spectrum Disorder, mild ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, and all of the normal childhood struggles of growing up.

In the past we have taken different children to doctors, psychologists, counselors, and therapists and although our children definitely benefited from seeing them, nothing has made a bigger difference in the long run than incorporating My Time into our family life.

Nothing.

This has validated the belief in me that parents know what is best for their children.

We value what we have learned from professionals in the past but every parent already holds the key to helping their child in the best way possible.

Spending time with them.

Of course we do not believe that My Time is the only way to help your child (we definitely recommend seeking professional treatment for your child if he/she needs it) but we DO believe that My Time will help EVERY CHILD!

We invite you to begin creating and cultivating this family value TODAY.

Work up to it however you need to and be patient with yourself as you work to create a routine.

Truly important routines take time to build.

Some days are My Time fails, but the system itself never fails.

Cheers to My Time TONIGHT and every night!

Comment below and tell us what you did with your child during My Time so others can share your great ideas!