7 Strategies To Help You Be A Great Parent Even If You Are Extremely Busy

I get it! Life today is so frenetic and busy...

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We get it! Life today is so frenetic and busy. Between the demands of work, and the myriad of other distracting demanding attention, how do we find the time to be present with our kids. Here are 7 fantastic ideas that can help you be more present with your children, even if you are extremely busy.

Find things you both like to do

Every parent feels the pull in multiple directions and the inadequacy of not being able to do as much as you want to. I’ve tried to focus on quality over quantity, to make the most of the time. The most conscious things I’ve had to do to make this work are 1) establishing times for looking at my phone and reading/responding to messages, so that I can then put it aside when I’m spending time with the kids. I turn off notifications during the times when I need to be focused. 2) prioritizing time for myself too — it doesn’t work to give everything you have to work and family and not keep any time for just yourself. I am a much more present parent when I’ve also allowed myself some time each day just for me, whether to read, get a drink with a friend, or go for a workout. 3) finding things that we like to do together. The highest quality time is when we’re doing things that we both genuinely love to do and look forward to. For example, my girls and I both love to garden, so that’s one of our regular Saturday morning activities. It can be easy as a parent, especially with young kids, to fall into a pattern of spending your time supervising your kids doing the things that they want to do, versus actively doing things together. The more you can flip that around and find things that you all really want to do, the higher quality the time will be. - Kate Eberle Walker

Know your children’s biggest needs

Being fully present with our children begins with being fully present ourselves. It always begins us. The first strategy is to tune in on a consistent basis. When we take the time to tune in, everyone and everything around us benefits. I spend a minimum of 15 minutes in the morning and evening in quiet time and reflection.

The second is scheduling in family time and priorities, and treating those with the same intention and precision as we do our professional goals and projects.

The third is knowing our children’s biggest needs to thrive in the specific chapter of their lives, and meeting or supporting those needs. What’s most critical for an infant to thrive won’t be most critical for a teenager. - Chinwe Esimai

Think before committing

I think every parent struggles with this and it’s one of the hardest for me. But here are some of the strategies I have found most helpful:

Be engaged. Put the phone away when you’re having a conversation. Even if you’re not looking at it, having it on the table or in your hand can send a signal that you’re there — but only until the next email comes in.

Think before committing. It’s easy to say yes to doing something without fully taking into account what all is entailed. Before committing to something, think about if this is really something that requires your presence, and if so how much time it will take. If it can be delegated or parts of it can be, you can use that time to focus on more important tasks or have more time with family.

One size doesn’t fit all. Everyone’s situation is different, and what works for one person may not work for another. I think back to when my colleagues and I would arrange childcare together so that we could attend the international meetings but also spend time with our kids. It wasn’t the typical approach to solving the dilemma of finding childcare, but it’s what worked for us. I’m learning the same holds true for how to best be present for your kids as they get older. It’s important to take a step back and look at your unique situation and your children, and see if maybe you need to try something different or unconventional. - Kitty Block

Volunteer at the school

My oldest daughter a few years back had a hard time transitioning into a new school. I couldn’t pinpoint what the exact issue was, but I started to spend the first ten minutes that I was awake solely focused on my kids vs. getting up and throwing everyone into the madness of the morning routine. I’m not always consistent about this, but it does seem when they start their days off with getting just those few minutes of ALL of my attention, we all function a little better.

I’d also recommend figuring out how to keep the glass balls in the air and let the rubber ones bounce. A manager once told me this, and it seems simple, but it took a watershed moment for me to realize that I couldn’t do it all. I had to recast expectations I’d had of myself of being the perfect mom, perfect spouse, perfect employee, etc. and determine what balls I was going to let slip through my fingers and fall to the ground. For instance, I stopped baking homemade cakes and being ok with store bought ones, my kids never match and rarely have bows in their hair, and sometimes the clothes don’t get folded, but letting those things be my rubber balls has freed me up to get the sleep I need and spend the time I need investing in my kids.

Another thing I believe helps to build high-quality connections is to volunteer at the school or even go eat lunch with your child from time to time. Also though this sometimes feels hard to fit into our busy lives, the act of being present in a place that is unexpected leaves a long impression on my kids.

Finally, having a special ritual with your children, I think it can help create those connections. We have Friday night movie night and little bedtime routines that always feel like our time to reconnect.

Amber Quist

Never have the phone out at dinner

As a parent, it can be tough to shift gears — especially after work. First, I’ve decided to protect 6:30 to 8:30 pm every night — I calendar it, block the time and no one can schedule on top of it (unless it’s incredibly urgent). It’s rare that something can’t wait two hours so I try to be religious about that time as our family’s wind down. Second, I never have my phone out at dinner — whether we’re eating at home or out at a restaurant — I don’t want my daughter to think that anything is more important than our meal and conversation. Third, if I have a call, I leave the house or take it from my car. We have a loud house and I like to be focused and present when I’m home. Before becoming a mom, I used to be absolutely glued to my phone and I’ve really tried to create boundaries that feel doable and practical even with a busy job. - Dani Dudeck

Schedule vacations with your kids

Put your phone away. No, really: put it away. The phone is such a big distraction. If you put it away, not only will your kids not play with it, but you will not play with it. Commit to putting your phone away for two hours every night.

Make sure that you schedule vacations with your kids. They don’t have to be long vacations, but they can be a day off here or there. It might be a special Saturday where you schedule a trip to the beach or go somewhere without cell service. Unplug and spend time with your family.

Create traditions. My family has a pizza and movie night every Saturday. I’ve trained myself to know that on Saturdays, I’m not going out with friends and I’m not working. On Saturdays, I’m going to be spending quality time with my kids in a way that we’ll all remember. When my kids look back, they’re remember that on Saturdays, we watched movies together and had fun.

Carve out one-on-one time. I’ve found that having time with both children together often leads to fighting. But by spending special alone time with one child at a time allows me to have deeper conversations and deeper bonding with that individual child.

In terms of creating space for more quality time, I’ve learned when to skip those certain school events. Although these are the events that I feel the guiltiest about not being able to go to, I find that every time I go there’s no actual “quality time” with my kids. I’m either at a class party, running an activity, and I end up spending only 5 minutes with my child. Or, I go to see some sort of play with hundreds of kids in it and my daughter doesn’t actually care that I’m there. I think it’s about carving out the quality time to talk and bond versus necessarily always trying to be at the things that there’s societal pressure to be at. - Elizabeth Douglas

Choose someone that lives in the moment to be your life partner

I have to give my husband the credit here. I constantly feel pressure to be everywhere and do everything for everyone. He on the other hand, lives in the moment. When I would be running down a list of things to get done. He would say something like: “But first we have jump on the trampoline.” Or “I will do that if right now we can make each of these kids laugh.” That filled our days with the best memories. So, my advice is choose someone that lives in the moment to be your life partner. - Diana O’Brien