Learning a new skill with your children

By Siddhi Jain 

New Delhi, June 21  This year, Father’s Day is unique due to the ongoing pandemic. While families cannot step out to celebrate, the true essence of the day comes alive when fathers get to spend quality time with their children, and while at it, engage creatively.

Fathers are often busy working throughout the year, and it is important to take time out to spend with your children. If you are a working father, there are some core values that both you and your children can benefit from. “The key to work life balance is proper planning and time management. At the end of the day, a super-dad must keep up his end of the bargain. You can add a new dimension to spending quality time with your children this Father’s Day by adding a fun learning session. This will enhance your relationship with your children and add a new skill to you and your children,” Dr Mitul Thakker, Chief People and Compliance Officer, IKS Health told IANSlife.

He suggests teaching your children time management skills, that will add to their learning curve and make parenting more joyful for you.

“Time management is an important skill to learn and practice. Despite the significance of implementing time management in our daily lives, managing time effectively is more often than not a huge concern. For working professionals, time management is one skill that is repeatedly coached at work, and we have to embrace the seriousness of it for the success of our lives. Thus, while you continue to hone the skill of time management – teach and learn the skill with your children this Father’s Day. Block your calendar for a few hours. Sit down with your kids and learn the time management skill by using an online tool or chalk out your own plan, using these helpful tips,” Dr Thakker said.

Keep a daily planner

Gift your child a daily planner or sit down to make one together. Writing down daily activities and tasks is extremely important to keep a track of what is lined up through the day. You can teach the children to maintain their daily tasks or create a timetable, which could even include playtime for the day. Make it as much fun and interactive as possible, whether on paper or on an electronic device.

Address urgent and important tasks

The next step to accomplishing all your tasks for the day and yet leaving room for your personal life is by marking the urgent and important jobs from the ones that are not. We learn about this matrix in official training we attend, and it is a valuable learning to share with your children at a young age. This will help them prioritize their homework and assignments and still have room for play and other fun activities.

Teamwork will take you a long way

Teaching teamwork to children at a young age emphasizes the importance of collaboration in life. Teamwork teaches children sharing responsibility and a sense of working towards a common goal within a group of people. Teamwork also means that you divide the work to get it done faster while each works within their core competency. This helps clear up your schedule leaving more time for completion of other important tasks.

Keeping distractions at bay

Concentration and focus are extremely important to complete jobs quickly without spending hours on them. Children emulate adults and it would be a good practice to keep the phone away while spending quality time with children. It could be fun to time the activities, like completing a task in the shortest amount of time; this would teach them the importance of doing one task at a time with least distractions and maximum outcome.

Work-life balance is much talked about; the best way to achieve this delicate balance is through optimal time management. Learn and teach this skill to your children so that you all have quality time to spend with each other, not only on Father’s Day but throughout the year.

(Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in)