Never be too busy to build bonds with your children.

I WAS aghast when I came across a recent newspaper report that parents spent an average of just eight minutes a day with their children.

What were the parents doing the rest of the 23 hours and 52 minutes? No wonder we read in the papers about children who have gone astray and parents lamenting that they are not able to control their children.

Parents should take full responsibility for taking care of their children. Parenting is a huge on-going task and if one cannot come to terms with that, then one should never embark on being parents.

Below are some guidelines for parents.

Know your child. Who is his best friend in school? Who does he hang around with after school? Better still, meet his friends and have them come over to your place.

Make your home a place where they can hang out and if possible, cook a meal or two for your children’s friends. Also, know who their parents are and more importantly, the contact number and addresses of their buddies so that if anything goes awry you can contact them.

Their friends will think twice if they want to do anything out of the ordinary, after having being acquainted with you.

When was the last time you visited the school? Some parents make it a point to go when they have to collect the report card. Others turn up during the annual Parent Teacher Association meeting. Some never make an appearance in school.

Being an ex-teacher myself, I find that it is imperative for parents to come and meet the teachers, and not only when they are summoned to. When the parents take the trouble to meet the teachers, the teachers will take extra care over the student. Also, the pupil will be wary now that the teacher has met his parents and will think twice before he does mischief or play truant in school.

Aside from that, what about the tuition teachers? Many parents faithfully send their children for tuition and feel they have done their duty. Make it a point to see the tuition teacher to check on your child’s progress. These can be topics of conversation with your children.

One way to make sure that you spend time with your offspring is to have at least one meal with them. Dinner would be good but if you cannot fit it in during weekdays, then try the weekends.

Better still, prepare your children’s favourite dishes, if you know what they are. Sit and chat with them. A joke or two would be good. If you can do that with your friends, why can’t you do that with your family members?

I also advocate visiting the grandparents during the weekends; family bonds are ever so important.

Take the initiative to organise family dos, for example, a picnic with cousins or a barbecue with uncles and aunts. Or there might be enough cousins to have a football game, with fathers and uncles included.

Finally, parents nowadays tend to indulge their children. When both parents are working, they shed their guilt of not spending time with their children by giving them more money than they need. There are expensive toys for the younger ones and PlayStations for the older kids. Many youngsters today are armed with the latest handphones.

Parents should keep a check on their children’s expenditure; perhaps then there will be fewer youths who smoke or while away their time at Internet cafes. We could even eradicate the problem of Mat Rempit if parents keep an eye on their children’s whereabouts.

And so I urge all parents to spend more time with their children. Do not live to regret that you did not have time for them in their formative years.

Marcelen Cox sums it up when she says: “Parents are so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.”

The best inheritance parents can give their children is to spend time with them.