Kids In The Kitchen

Most working parents worry about not spending enough quality time with their kids. One simple way of spending time with your kids is to bring them into the kitchen while you complete your own chores instead of letting them watch TV or play video games while you come home and cook after work.

Most of us fondly remember the time that we spent alone or as a family with one or both of our parents. This includes bike rides with dad, weekend shopping with mom, Christmas baking as a family etcetera etcetera. All of us have fond memories of a number of the unique things that we did along with our parents and siblings when we were kids. Unfortunately however, most of us are not passing on the same legacy of memories to our kids, what with our busy schedules and hectic lives.

While reminiscing about the good old days that we used to spend with our family as kids around an year back, the thought struck me that I wasn't doing a single thing with my kids that my parents used to do with me and which I now so lovingly remembered. Yeah, we do take family vacations about once, sometimes even twice a year, but when we are at home, most of us, including my kids aged five and seven have pretty much our own separate lives. Apart from helping them with their home work and asking them how their day went when we meet in the evening, we really do not indulge in any combined activity. My husband, who is away on business trips for the better part of the month nowadays, comes home only to spoil and pamper the kids by giving in to unreasonable demands, much to my chagrin and discontent.

All parents want their kids to have a happy childhood that they can reminisce about with a smile on their face when they are adults and I am no different. Unfortunately, I realized that happiness for my kids was more or less materialistic in terms, with both parents showering them with costly gifts to make up for the guilt of not spending enough time with them. After a lot of self introspection, both I and my husband decided to give our kids what they deserved-happy memories with their parents and "not" costly presents from their parents.

To start with, we made a list of all the things that we used to do and like with our own parents. While occasional picnics and trips are good times for bonding with your kids through shared activities, daily family bonding routines like making and having dinner together , even watching the same program on the television together are necessary if you want to be your kids' best friends. Different things might work out for you as a family, but for me, getting my kids into the kitchen with me has helped me to spend time with them while carrying out my basic chores as well. This kind of multi tasking has been going on for about an year and both my kids and I are happier for it. However, getting kids into the kitchen is not an easy task by any means, and after learning a lot through the mistakes I made, I can finally tell you what to do in order to get your own kids in the kitchen when you cook after a hectic day at work.