Thanks for sharing your experience. I can empathize with what you are saying. There are times I am very attentive to my kids, and my actions prove that there is nothing more important. But then there are times where they probably question where they stand in my priorities.
My go to is to read them a 10 minute book every so often throughout the day, or play a quick card game with them. Or we’ll play one or two rounds of his and seek. Instead of one chunk of time that lasts several hours, it ends up being multiple small 10-15 minute chunks throughout the day. It works well for us.
Really appreciate the comment and suggestion, Jeff. I'll have to try that - I think I have always had a hard time setting boundaries with these things. My daughter will say she wants 10 more minutes, and I tend to cave, but grow increasingly distracted and frustrated. But now that you lay it out, it makes it obvious I should do that - more frequent chunks of 10 minutes of solid time will certainly be better than 30 minutes of guilt-ridden, low attention time, for both of us.
What you might think is an issue of mindfulness might actually be an issue with dopamine and how attached to technology/devices we all are. I struggle with being present with my kids the entire time because of the idea of checking my phone for a quick hit of dopamine by checking email/Twitter/group chat/work. You should look up some videos from Dr. K (Healthy gamer) on the subject - it was helpful for me and your experiences resonated with my own
Yeah great point. I certainly am tethered to my device during the day, and I imagine that's a big factor driving my anxiety. Will check it out, thanks Seth!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I can empathize with what you are saying. There are times I am very attentive to my kids, and my actions prove that there is nothing more important. But then there are times where they probably question where they stand in my priorities.
My go to is to read them a 10 minute book every so often throughout the day, or play a quick card game with them. Or we’ll play one or two rounds of his and seek. Instead of one chunk of time that lasts several hours, it ends up being multiple small 10-15 minute chunks throughout the day. It works well for us.
Really appreciate the comment and suggestion, Jeff. I'll have to try that - I think I have always had a hard time setting boundaries with these things. My daughter will say she wants 10 more minutes, and I tend to cave, but grow increasingly distracted and frustrated. But now that you lay it out, it makes it obvious I should do that - more frequent chunks of 10 minutes of solid time will certainly be better than 30 minutes of guilt-ridden, low attention time, for both of us.
What you might think is an issue of mindfulness might actually be an issue with dopamine and how attached to technology/devices we all are. I struggle with being present with my kids the entire time because of the idea of checking my phone for a quick hit of dopamine by checking email/Twitter/group chat/work. You should look up some videos from Dr. K (Healthy gamer) on the subject - it was helpful for me and your experiences resonated with my own
Yeah great point. I certainly am tethered to my device during the day, and I imagine that's a big factor driving my anxiety. Will check it out, thanks Seth!