{"id":69708,"date":"2024-03-05T17:46:35","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T10:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alternatech.net\/?p=69708"},"modified":"2024-03-05T17:46:35","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T10:46:35","slug":"treasure-your-kids-when-theyre-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/treasure-your-kids-when-theyre-little\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasure Your Kids When They\u2019re Little"},"content":{"rendered":"

Treasure Your Kids When They\u2019re Little Because They Don\u2019t Stay That Way for Long\n
With every passing breath, our kids are growing up and growing away from us. Before we know it, they\u2019re moving out and starting their own families. If you\u2019re thinking, \u201cMy child is an infant, I have a LONG way to go before that happens,\u201d let me tell you, time flies faster than you can even imagine. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to treasure your kids when they\u2019re little because they don\u2019t stay that way for long.\n
Spend time with them, not just near them\n
I think we often confuse spending time near our kids with spending time with them. For example, we promise them a \u201cMommy and me\u201d outing, so we take them to their favorite park. Then, we sit on our phones texting away while they play alone two feet from us. We go home and tell everyone what a wonderful day we had spending time with our kids.\n
Really listen when they talk to you\n
Your son is in the middle of telling you a loooooooong story about how his best bud Tommy found an 8-legged cricket, but it turned out to be a spider and, oh it wasn\u2019t real, it was on his favorite show that by the way is getting canceled next month isn\u2019t that so sad and\u2026you get the run-on-sentence point. Meanwhile, you\u2019re \u201cuh-huh\u2019ing\u201d away and thinking about whether you remembered to add milk to your shopping list.\n
We\u2019re all guilty of doing the zoned out, \u201cuh-huh\u201d thing, so don\u2019t feel bad. However, if you really want to treasure your kids when they\u2019re little, try tuning into those crazy long (and let\u2019s be honest, not all that exciting to us) stories. See, buried beneath every long-winded tale is a wealth of information about how your child sees the world. Plus, one day when he\u2019s off on his own, you\u2019ll miss these daily \u201cnews\u201d reports from him.\n
Celebrate small milestones\n
We have this tendency to measure our kids\u2019 lives in major milestones. During the first year, we celebrate nearly every other day. First time he slept through the night, rolled over, laughed, ate solid food, took a step, took two steps in a row, ran! We fill out every line of every page in that first-year baby book. It\u2019s magical!\n
Then, our kids hit their 1st birthday and it goes a little like this: First day of kindergarten, 10th birthday, 13th birthday, the first day of high school, 16th birthday, graduation, college graduation, marriage. No wonder it feels like our kids grow up so fast! If we just looked back at the milestones, we\u2019ll have celebrated a grand total of like 8 days in our children\u2019s lives.\n
Take family vacations\n
From making your kids smarter to helping everyone live longer, there are so many amazing benefits to family vacations. To me, though, getting to spend totally uninterrupted time with my family is the #1 benefit by far. If you can travel, absolutely do so. I\u2019m not saying you have to spend a fortune for a week-long getaway somewhere exotic. I know that not everyone has the money for an actual vacation. Try a staycation in your hometown, or even just in your own home. It\u2019s not about where you go, it\u2019s about how you spend the time. As long as you\u2019re spending it together, it counts!\n
Have weekly \u201cunplugged\u201d family date nights\n
If you can\u2019t even take two days off in a row for a family staycation (many parents are working multiple jobs, so even a full weekend off is a luxury), make the most of whatever time you DO have to spend together by removing distractions. Pick one night a week (say, Friday nights) and make it an \u201cunplugged together\u201d night. Turn off and put away anything with a screen. That includes the TV! Then, break out the board games, crafting supplies, or other non-digital activities and spend the night just hanging out together as a family. It\u2019s really amazing what you can learn about your kids when you clear out all of the distractions.\n
Just let them be kids\n
From exceedingly high expectations to overscheduled activities to massive chore charts that fill any leftover time, one of the biggest reasons that our kids\u2019 childhoods go by so fast is because WE are making them grow up too fast. Kids today have very few opportunities to explore the world in a free and unstructured way. To make mistakes. To have big messy feelings. To laugh, play, and dream. To just BE.\n
Try to remember what it was like to be their age. Let them have their magic and wonder while they still can. More importantly, let them share that magic and wonder with you. Let them be kids, and enjoy every moment of it.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Treasure Your Kids When They\u2019re Little Because They Don\u2019t Stay That Way for Long With every passing breath, our kids are growing up and growing away from us. Before we know it, they\u2019re moving out and starting their own families. If you\u2019re thinking, \u201cMy child is an infant, I have a LONG way to go\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":69777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Treasure Your Kids When They\u2019re Little Because They Don\u2019t Stay That Way for Long With every passing breath, our kids are growing up and...","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[642],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-69708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-moral-story"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Treasure-Your-Kids-When-Theyre-Little-Because-They-Dont-Stay-That-Way-for-Long.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}