Tale to Understand the Importance of Spending "Quality" TIme with Our Children and Fa

VERY BIG ONE, but spend sometime to read to change your way of life
Andrew was reversing his car out of the garage when he saw his daughter Avanti walking down the pathway that led to the main gate. She was dressed up and was holding an envelope in her hand.

"Where are you going?"
"I ... I ...am going....." Avanti hesitated and then said, "Papa I am going to the post office."
"Why?"
"I have to drop this letter."
"Give it me, I'll drop it."

Avanti hesitated for a moment and then handed over the envelope. Andrew placed it on the seat beside him, reversed the car out of the main gate and waving to Avanti drove off. He was getting late for the office and decided not to stop on the way. From the office he
would send his messenger Jeetram to post the letter.

After reaching his office he rang the bell. As he waited for Jeetram to appear he casually glanced at the envelope. In a childish scrawl was written the following address:

Mister God
Heaven
High in the Sky.

Andrew tore open the envelope and started reading:

Dear Mister God,

This is my first letter to you. My Mama used to say that you love children very much. That you always answer their prayers. My Mama died three days after my seventh birthday. Till then I was very happy. But now I am very, very sad. My Papa used to laugh and play
with me when my Mama was there. But now he hardly talks to me. He is always very sad. He doesn't laugh and play anymore. In the morning he leaves early and comes home only after I have gone to bed. Daisy Aunty says he has started drinking.

Please Mister God, I don't want to stay in this house without Mama. Please, can you send her back. If you can't send her back because she has already become an angel, then please take me away with you just as you took Mama away.

I am good girl. You can ask Mama. I always do my homework, make my own bed and drink my milk. I will not bother you. Please Mister God, I will be waiting.

Love,
Avanti.
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Andrew read the letter not once but three times. After a few minutes he got up and walked to his Boss's room. He told him he wanted leave for the day. After taking permission he walked out of the office, got into his car and drove straight to his favorite spot on the ouirts of the city. It overlooked a huge lake and at that time of the day was quite lonely. There, under the shade of the huge banyan tree, he and his wife Janet had nicknamed Grandpa Moses, he read the letter again and again....

He closed his eyes and thought about the events of the last nine months....

Janet had died in a road accident nine months ago. With her death his life had been completely shattered. Luckily Mrs. Daisy, the governess, had been there to take care of Avanti or things would have got more complicated. After Janet's death Andrew just didn't
feel like going home. Every little thing in the house reminded him of his Janet and the moments they had spent together. He started leaving home early in the morning and working late in the office. From there, instead of heading straight home, he would go to the
nearby bar and start drinking. He would reach home long after Alice had slept. He never spared a thought for Avanti convinced that Mrs. Daisy was taking good care of her. She had been with them for the last three years and Janet had trained her well.

Absorbed in his own sorrow, Andrew had failed to notice his daughter's loneliness. He had not realized that she was missing her mother as much, if not more, than he was missing his wife. Avanti needed his love and affection. Mrs. Daisy could hardly be a substitute
for either Janet or even Andrew.

He looked at his watch. It was one. He had spent close to three hours under the shade of Grandpa Moses. He got up, carefully put the letter in his pocket and walked towards his car....

* * *

Six months later Avanti was still in bed. Andrew was about to wake her up when he saw the all too familiar brown envelope on the table beside the bed. Once again it was addressed to Mister God. He picked up the envelope and walked into the living room. He tore open
the envelope, removed the letter inside it, and settling into a chair started reading:

Dear Mister God,

This is my second letter to you. I know you got the first one. I want to thank you. Even though you didn't send Mama or take me to her, you did something which is almost as good. You changed my Papa completely.

You know Mister God, I now sleep with him in his room, with his big and strong arms around me. My Papa tells me stories - funny ones, scary ones and sometimes lovely ones which are a little sad. In the morning we go together for swimming. He has taught me how to swim. In the evening we go for Yoga. At night after dinner he takes me out for a ride. He has even stopped drinking - you can check with Daisy Aunty.

Dear Mister God, thank you so much. You could not give me back my Mama but you have given me a brand new Papa.

Lots of love and kisses,

Avanti.
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Andrew stopped reading. A few minutes later when Mrs. Daisy entered the living room with the breakfast tray she found Andrew sitting in the armchair his eyes closed, a crumpled envelope in his hand and tears streaming down his face!!

SPIRITUAL COMMENTARY

With today's busy lifestyles, parents need to spend "quality" time with their children.

But what is quality time?

"Quality time" is time spent doing an activity that is meaningful to the parent and child. It is time when family members really get to know each other. Quality time is spent focusing attention on the other person and sharing thoughts and feelings.

Spending time with your children can be fun and educational for you and your child.

According to Dr. James E. Van Horn, Professor of Rural Sociology, Pennsylvania State Cooperative Extension, "Most of the child's basic learning takes place in the many informal situations that occur daily in the life of the family. These informal occasions for learning
include all the times the family members are together doing ordinary things, such as getting dressed, taking baths, preparing to leave for kindergarten, eating, and so forth."

The activity does need not be costly, but rather one that satisfies both the parent and the child.

The Importance of Parenting

The goal of parenting is to help your child become a responsible adult. To achieve this goal, parents help children learn about life and living in today's society. The time a parent spends with a child is important.

Children need to be loved unconditionally. Doris Curran, a parent educator, says the cry of children today is, "Love me for who I am, not what I do. Love me for being, caring, sharing, and erring, not winning, placing, and showing." That does not mean that you have to approve of everything the child does. What it does mean is that even though the child misbehaves, you still love and accept the child and provide support.

Talk With Your Child

Spend time talking with your child. Talk about any topic of interest to both of you. Talk about the day's events and the child's feelings about them.

Through observation and interaction with parents, children learn how to communicate. Children learn to express their needs. They learn to listen. They learn to understand nonverbal clues.

Life's Lessons

Children learn about families from the time they spend in their own families. They learn about birth and caring for another person when a new baby comes home from the hospital. They learn about loss when a family member dies. They learn about marriage and relationships by watching their mothers and fathers interact. By living in a family, children learn to share, how to stand up for their own rights, and how to love another person.

Building Self-Esteem

Parents help children develop positive self-esteem by communicating the value they feel for the child. Words of encouragement and love help provide children with the courage to try new things without worrying excessively about not being able to do them.

Growing Up With Trust

Children learn about trust at home from their parents. They learn trust from being trusted. When the parent trusts the child to accomplish a task on his or her own, the child learns that he or she can do the task.

Give Guidance

Parents help children learn to be more responsible when they help children learn to control their own behavior. A disciplined person has the ability to decide what appropriate behavior is and to act accordingly. Parents use discipline to help guide their children as they become responsible adults.

Take the time to make discipline a learning experience for the child. Appropriate discipline should include four parts:
The child needs to understand:
1) which behavior is not acceptable and
2) why, and
3) what behavior is appropriate and
4) why.

By helping a child understand why what he or she did was unacceptable, the child can learn what acceptable behavior is. There is no one right way to discipline a child. A variety of discipline techniques exist. What is important is a warm and loving relationship between the parent and the child.

Spending time with family is important. We often get so wrapped up in the importance of money or other things in life that we sometimes forget about the most important little things. How many times can we as adults remember when our parents or perhaps relatives were too busy to spend time with us? We always remember those times during our childhood. Perhaps it made you sad from time to time. What can we do about it? Nothing except for to not make the same mistake within our own family.

It is more important than we realize to spend time with our family to bring them closer together while it is also spending quality time together. Spending time with your family over the year is something you can't replace cause time goes by quickly. Time goes by more
quickly than we realize at times. It seems like yesterday an individual was a child now years later they are an adult.

We often take things for granted. Please don't take spending time with your family for granted cause its one of those things that you don't realize those happy memories you missed out on until later on in life. We often look back and wish that we could have spent more
time with our immediate family or other family members, but we didn't cause of whichever reason it was at the time. It is one of those things that you can never really make up for due to time.

I think its affects children when they grow up more than the parents. Children notice it when their parents don't spend time with them or they are simply too busy due to work. They might not say much due to not wanting to cause problems if they notice you are stressed out due to work or some other issue. Some Parents sometimes think it doesn't bug children when you don't spend time with them.

The more family time you spend together you will notice a reduce in stress in the household and less arguments among each other. Sure, you may say that you don't spend enough time with family because of being constantly busy due to working to earn money. Perhaps both parents work outside the home. Money doesn't always make people happy.

Sometimes you need to ask yourself would you rather have less stress in your household and have less arguments or constantly be busy working with more stress all around you. It is a personal choice. You decide. It is possible to spend time with your family and also make money from home.There a variety of options for working at home even for people who love to work constantly.

All we can do is the best we can do possibly. The important part is to spend most of the time with our family that we can as best as possible. Sometimes events happen in life that often delays us from being able to do the things that we would like to do more.

Below are what some parents feel :

"Money can't buy the joy I feel when I get home and my son gives me a big hug. I can't believe God has blessed me with such a wonderful boy."

"I'm always on the run with three kids and a demanding part-time job. Still, I make a point to schedule special one-on-one time with each child. Last night I felt like collapsing after an especially frantic day. When I got to bed, however, I found a delightful poem
on my pillow. At the end, it said, 'We love you, Mommy!'"

"I was working on an important assignment for a client when my son walked into my home office and asked me how to build a tepee. I decided to take a quick 10-minute break to show him how. When he crawled into our makeshift contraption and sat down, you should
have seen the smile on his face."

Nothing can match the joy, delight and contentment of spending time with our children!

So after reading this...if you as parents or teachers feel you are missing on something very important....think about it this minute,rectify and make a difference to your children and family!:)

take a pat on ur bk for posting this wonderful story here . good job dear . keep it up .