Can quality time make up for less quantity of time with children?

Transcripts

Host: Can quality time make up for less quantity of time with children?

Dr. Diana Zuckerman: The quality of the time you spend with your children is very important but the quantity of time is also very important. You can't make up for spending very little time with your children by spending one good hour with them per week or something but it's important that both. I mean, it's certainly true that there parents who spend a lot of time with their children but there is not much quality to it. On the other hand, there are all kinds of quality time. It may not feel like quality time, if all you are doing is cleaning up a room together. I am sure that's not fun for the child and it's not particularly fun for the parent but it is a way of doing something together and have a sense of accomplishment and as long as you are thanking the child for their help and praising them for doing a good job, that can be quality time. Watching a video together or a TV show together can be quality time. If you are talking about the program, if you are sharing ideas about it, if you are sharing your feelings about it, that can be more of a quality time. Then many other activities. There is no magic to -- playing Monopoly together isn't necessarily quality time and watching a movie together is not quality time. So, there is all kinds of quality time but you do have to remember that both are important, both quality and quantity.