When your child and you plan quality time together, you might want to help by offering suggestions. Decide what day and time is best for both of you, and then start talking about your experiences in a museum when you were young. Think about which parts of the museum you liked most the last time you went. Decide if you want to return to the same places or to see other exhibits, or maybe a combination of both. Perhaps you might want to go to a different wing. Talk about what you expect to see in that wing. In that way you can increase the excitement and the anticipation for what is to come. If the time of going to the museum is a week or more away, then during that time you can mention how you’re looking forward to going with your child to the museum and seeing the things that you had discussed.

If you and your your child decide to go to the zoo and your child wants to see the giraffes, then you have a wonderful opportunity to prepare for the visit to the zoo by looking up information about giraffes. Become an expert on giraffes. A little quick glance at an encyclopedia will give you all that you need to know in order to improve the quality time at the zoo. If your child has her own then go together with the child to look up giraffes. Ask the child if the child has read or seen anything about giraffes. Review it with the child so that you are on the same wavelength, with the same background, feelings, understandings and points of reference. This way you will increase your joint experiences and knowledge.

Another way to use quality time is to determine policy. You may want your child to go to bed at a certain time, but he wants to stay up later. You may have valid reasons because you want the child to be rested in school and to be easier to get up in the morning. The child might have reasons that are valid to her such as the fact that other kids claim to stay up later and their parents don’t mind, or the fact that there are important TV shows on at that later hour. To the child these reasons are more valid than yours. Your quality time can be used to work out the problem of the bedtime. Present your point of view. The child will listen with an open mind if he knows you will listen with an open mind. Following a serious discussion, based upon the merits of the facts, you should be able to arrive at an understanding that will be satisfactory to both of you. In that way, the child will learn to be considerate of others’ feelings, to take other people’s ideas into account, and to become more cooperative. In this issue, for example, the discussion might lead to a decision to take a nap during the day before important TV shows, or to restrict the number of evenings in which the child is allowed to stay up late. However, there should be a compromise in which some evenings the child can stay up later than what you had in mind, but earlier than what the child had in mind. Allow for certain exceptions, such as an earlier night before the child knows there will be an extra late night. All of this can be achieved during quality time, which is when these discussions are the most successful.

Another way of arranging quality time can work if Dad works at home. Telecommuters make their own hours at home and do not face traffic going in to work. They may produce more work but they don’t have to appear at an office from 9 to 5. They are available when their child is at home, and they can devote time to their child when he needs them.

This might require unconventional working hours. You might do part of your work at night, so that you will be available for the child during the day time when he is most active. You will be able to spend time watching him grow and develop. This requires a certain amount of flexibility in your lifestyle but that is a minor sacrifice in order to be a part of your child’s development. Not everybody had the advantage of working in a SoHo (small office home office) environment, but the parents who do have this opportunity can certainly take advantage of it.