Expert Parenting Advice
Practical parenting tips and advice from experts around the world

How to improve your relationship with your child if you have no time

A simple habit for building a deeper connection with your child without spending any extra work or time.

Every morning, I wake up...and then suddenly it is evening and I'm putting my kids to bed.

Driving kids to school. Making food. Working. Running errands. Cleaning the house. Taking kids to dance or Taekwondo.

The todo list just never stops.

And it is so easy to get to the end of the day, put the kids to bed, and then realize that I haven't really spend any quality time with them.

And each day that goes by where I don't work on my relationship with my kids is a missed opportunity that I will never get back.

That's why I really appreciate the advice that Sarah Rosensweet gave me when I interviewed her for our book How To Get Kids To Listen.

Sarah is a peaceful parenting coach, and the host of the popular podcast The Peaceful Parenting Podcast.

When I asked Sarah how I can improve my relationship with my kids, she shared two simple techniques - the "difficult" one for when you have 15 minutes a day, and the "easy" one for when you don't even have 15 minutes a day.

She calls the "easy" technique Delighting in your child. It is a tiny habit that you build to remind yourself to connect with your child throughout the day. It requires no effort, no extra time, and no extra commitment...but it can drastically improve the relationship you have with your child.

It is something that you can do every day, and the more you do it, the more you will appreciate your child, and the more connected your child will feel with you.

All it takes is having the right mindset, and a way to remind yourself to do it - I have been putting up reminders on my phone to remind me to do this throughout the day.