How do you find time to be with your family?

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dizzy_dave

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How much time do you spend daily with your wife and kids? I mean quality time, one on one, no t.v., traveling, etc. I’m finding it hard to spend the time I want to individually with my wife and four soon to be five kids. Ages 8, 7, 2, &1. I want to be a better husband and father but it is so hard to juggle work, work at home, faith, and family. I would appreciate your suggestions. Thanks.
 
We are porch-sitters. Matthew Kelly wrote that it is important to waste time with the people we love, and we take that to heart!

I work full time with a 104 mile commute each day – so, I am away from home around 12 hours each day. When I arrive, DH and the dog are sitting on the porch. Son comes out and stays for awhile (depends on his homework). We talk – for at least an hour each night. Neighbors come by and chat a bit – sometimes it turns into a salon with many extra friends and kids and dogs, some evenings it is just us. Sometimes we have a glass of wine. In the summer, we slap skeeters and bring out a fan if it gets too muggy… In the winter, we bundle up.

DH has supper cooked before I get home, and it waits for us in the evenings. We eat after our porch time. Some evenings, the discussion will get deep and we will all sit there for a couple of hours – if we get hungry we grab some olives and bread or cheese or some other snack. There are evenings when we don’t eat dinner til 9 PM (later on weekends) – but, we all spend quality time together. We talk about everything and about nothing. We debate, and laugh.

Last evening, we had a CCD teachers dinner at 6:30. When we arrived home around 9 PM, we naturally sat down on the porch for about half an hour, just to unwind. The moon was bright, the frogs were singing and we saw the first fireflies of the summer!

When I travel on business, or we are away for a weekend – we miss our time.

So my advice – sit on the porch!
 
I get two weeks vacation a year, spend one week in each state where kids live, try to soak up grandkid time, and hope they find a way to visit down here in the winter, it’s killing me, but that’s the way it is. fortunately “other grandmas” are active part of their lives. spend a lot of time on e-mail (quieter than a phone conversation with kids uproar in the background: Ben, stop squirting that at your sister, I’m trying to talk to Grandma!, Jessie, get that greasy thing off the couch – Ally, don’t jump with those scissors in your hand, dont you look at me that way young lady . . .)
 
Well, with my family, we spend the most time together at the dinner table, usually for about an hour each evening. Additionally, I usually chat with my mom for 30-40 minutes four times a week (more or less, depending on hw), and then I usually just chill with my dad for a little while. I am home every day after school and my sister is home three days a week, so we screw around a bit during that time. Then, on the weekends, it varies greatly.

Eamon
 
I read to my kids every night.
Right now we’re reading The Silver Chair,by Lewis. Your 7 and 8 year olds are a great age for reading to. The little ones, you could help your wife put them to bed/bathe/play with, thus leaving some time to be with her afterwards.
You deserve credit for being so devoted to your family.
 
Lately, we spend time at the baseball, softball, and T-ball fields every night–lol.

Over the past year, as my kids are getting older, I have implemented mandatory Sunday dinner. Over the winter months, we had family game night on Thursdays–every week someone got a chance to pick the game.

Every morning before school, the kids and I say a decade of the Rosary and do some reading—we’re reading Chronicles of Narnia—and/or do catechism lessons.

My husband and I also try to have a “date” with each child 1 or 2 times per year. Right now, my husband and daughter are off for the weekend together. Sometimes, it’s a movie and dinner or shopping/dinner.

We’ve also had family TV time—like Brady Bunch, Little House on the Prairie–currently it’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition. We make popcorn and sit down as a family and enjoy a show together.

God Bless you dizzy_dave and Congratulations on the the new baby coming!!!
 
I work with my husband (and yes, we still LIKE each other! 😛 ), we live only a mile from the office, and though both our kids are grown, we have family game night or movie night at least once a month! If we can’t be together on our “night,” we all go to lunch or have breakfast together.
 
Yeah, my mom, my dad, and I have spent about an hour each evening watching TV with each other all through high school. I always stayed up late, even when I was young, so I just started sitting with them. Now, it’s more like 3 hours per week, because I don’t like what’s on, and my parents don’t bother watching it either.

Eamon
 
My husband works from early in the morning too, sometimes doesn’t get home until just before bed time at night. Even with the kids, it does get kind of lonely.

He reads to the kids. Almost everynight. On days off, we try to do something adventurous as a family. Right now we are on a quest for smashed pennies at the zoo. Today we’ll go looking for more after everyone has napped.
 
dizzy dave - What a sincere post! I sometimes wonder if my hubby REALLY thinks about family time. We own a business together…he RUNS it physically, I RUN it on computer and bookkeeping…we have a 4 yo, 11 month old and baby three on the way! He is away from us about 12 hours a day also. I actually figured up the actual “awake” time that he is home and it’s about 3 hours a day! What I do…just recently…NO TV! Bottom line! When the TV is on, he is just in “la la land”. So, no TV unless it’s something that our 4 yo wants to watch with him. Also, Sunday’s are our day. When we first started the business, sometimes he would even work on Sunday afternoons…I put a stop to that. We just need time alone sometimes, because the business is very demanding of him and me both. So, my advice, drop the television, turn it off, watch it after kids are asleep or in the early morning…BTW, really the only time my hubby and I have alone is early morning coffee time…I sometimes wonder how we continue to have time to …you know…get “little ones”…:o
 
whether I have time or not, I try to make time to be with them. My family is so very important to me…so… homework tends to get put off until late at night when most everybody is in bed!
 
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