Every mother spends so much time with her kids when at home, and this would tend to think that just staying with the child or around the child in the same house is quality time... but psychologically, this is not right. Just sitting in the same room, and busy with your phone or laptop, checking emails/Whatsapp/messages, or talking to somebody on the phone is not the quality time. Quality time is when we are actually spending time with our kids or family and giving our full attention to them. Not only the physical presence but involved with the child mentally and emotionally as well. In the present lifestyle, everyone is busy with so many responsibilities of family and work. but spending little time with the child (maybe one hour or more in a day) can be very meaningful for the child as well as for the parent-child relationship too.

Economic theories (Becker, 1981; Coleman, 1988) assume that time is a resource or commodity that parents invest in their children. Time with children provides social capital that creates human capital for at least two reasons. First, one element of social capital is the trustworthiness of a social context, which a consistent, available caregiver may provide. Second, time is a prerequisite for parents to provide intellectual stimulation and social interactions for their children. According to attachment theory, the infant forms a working model of secure social relationships on the basis of experience with a sensitive, responsive, and predictable attachment figure, usually the mother. Extended hours of separation may disrupt this process because mothers have fewer opportunities to learn their infants' signals and to develop appropriate reciprocal interactions, and infants may experience their mothers' presence as sporadic and unpredictable (Huston & Aronson, 2006). 

Therefore, spending quality time with the child is very fruitful in terms of the emotional, and intellectual development of the child. Quality time with the child refers to the undivided attention of parents on the child without any distraction. It may involve many ways depending on the resources in the house to the locality a family lives in. Here is the list of activities you can do with your child to spend quality time :

1. Playing indoor games, ludo, scrabble, tombola, Tic-Tac-Toe, carrom board, chess, etc.

2. Doing physical fitness activities like exercise, yoga, meditation

3. Creative games like craft making, drawing, shadow making, papercraft, etc.

4. Motor coordination activities involve hand, eye, and brain coordination activities involve, Balloon Tossing, Jump Rope Drills, Target Practice, Balloon Hockey, etc.

5. Traditional Fun games at home is good to spend time with the child and they may involve, quizzes, jumping, dark night, shadow making, etc.

6. Involving children by asking for help in the kitchen work, house making, cloth folding, etc.

7.  Going for morning and evening walks with the child and Playing outdoor games like badminton, cricket, table tennis, etc.

Moreover, making a routine of having at least one meal together is one good basic start for the same. Helping child as parents to be a part of their liked activities, where one could try and enjoy some T.V. show, talking about school, sharing some fun and old stories and provoking child to share his/her own experiences. 

Now the question arises, why psychologists suggest spending quality time with the child?

The best answer is to help you know your child. Many parents complain that they do not know that what he/she does, how he/she think, and how he/she reacts to others. The quality time gives you an opportunity to know more and more about the personal, social, cognitive, and emotional skills of your child. By spending quality time, you could know about how he perform things, how he reacts to failure, what he/she does at frustration, whether your child is patient, empathetic, calm, and cute or your child is aggressive, arrogant, violent, or quite. In addition to it, you can know if your child performs risky behaviors or not and much more.  

The parents, who really give more than an hour as quality time to their child since the beginning have a lesser risk of losing their child to unethical, unlawful or life-threatening behaviors. They have good communication, where child most often shares everything that happens to him or her. The parents know the hobbies/likes/dislikes of their child and quality time does improve your bonding with your child helping you nurture him/her in a positive way.

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