The power of Time Together

Your child wants and needs one thing more than any other. Though it’s perhaps something they can’t put into words, they most definitely feel that need from deep inside of them. It can’t be bought and neither can it be sold. Why? Because it’s freely given, even though it's possibly the most precious thing you can ever offer them. It’s something called Time Together.

No matter how hard life has been made to be, no matter how little time you might think you have once your own pressures are met, Time Together with your child is the greatest gift you will ever give them. That time you pour into them will repay itself a thousand-fold as you grow together. The more Time Together, the closer you become, the more love you put into your child’s life and your own.

So many of the things we might do with our children are presented as things that cost money – holidays, trips away, experiences. Yet the truth is Time Together doesn’t necessarily need to cost you much, and it doesn’t have to be a grand gesture either. It can be as plain as chatting on the way to nursery or school with phones away in a pocket. It can be a simple meal of baked beans on toast sat side by side on the sofa, watching a children’s cartoon together. It can even be a quiet moment with each other, looking at a magazine and daydreaming.

You know that you love your child more than anything else in the world. How might you show them powerfully? Make Time Together. And one of the best ways to do this is to carve out time (five to ten minutes each day) to explore a picture book. If you can’t read, then maybe just chat about the pictures. The story is not nearly as important as the Time Together, with all its wonderful closeness and warmth. Sit with one another, maybe with your child on your lap, holding your hand or even stroking the material of what you are wearing – all of these are small but immensely powerful conditions of ‘Book Snuggling’.

Book snuggling not only brings imagination into your family life, but it also gives you the gifts of wonder, slowing down, anticipation, connection, new words, new worlds, laughter, and a simple yet long-lasting feeling that time with one another is special and precious.

Books and Time Together are the warmth and connection that your child is programmed for. The more you find time within each coming day to share that time, wonderful though unseen things begin to happen – listening, chat, wonder, and love begin to grow. It may seem trivial, but all these things are going to shape your child’s skillset to be in the world as an empowered learner and thinker. Each day, add just a little drop more of Time Together and see where its adventure might take you. After all, adventure is what your child also wants, and I have a sneaking suspicion that you might want that too.