* Disclaimer : no judgement if you do happen to practice this thing, everyone has the right to do what is right for them!

Topic: making time for one on one time with each child at different times.

Alright stick with me here and if you’re a parent that regularly partakes in this sort of practice, I really don’t want this to come off as an attack in any way- but I do think that the “one on one” thing doesn’t actually have anything to do with the child, but more so has everything to do with you as the parent. If in your soul you feel like you need some one on one time with a particular child of yours, that’s great but I don’t believe in labeling it as something you have to do with each child when you have siblings. I know it’s a trendy thing going around mom media (social media centered around motherhood- which I actually loathe), but that’s where I’ve seen it a lot and made me think about writing about it here.

I like to call myself a planner, probably an over-planner to be honest but part of how I feel about this topic stems from the over-planning sociopath in me. I know that in the future, there will inevitably come a time where our family of 4- mom, dad, sister, brother, are all pulled into different directions and split up. I know there will be a time where we’ll have to divide our time and balance different sports schedules, different school activities, different hobbies, etc, and that will inevitably mean mom gets one kid, dad gets the other. So guess what? When that time comes, we’re all going to be getting plenty of solo one on one time and until that time comes, I fully intend on spending every waking second available to us, as a family of 4 together.

We chose to have more than one child because we wanted to have a pair of siblings there for each other and are raising our kids and our family to be a unit. I actually think it might even be a little detrimental to even tout the idea to your children that “so and so is getting one on one time with mommy today- YAY!” What is that teaching your kids? That unless they get the one on one time, that they aren’t actually getting all of your attention for the majority of all the other time? Or that one child is being rewarded and the other is being left out? For me, I just never want to create the environment (even unintentionally) where my kids feel like they’re competing for my attention at any time.

I also know that as the kids get older, having a boy and a girl, there are obviously going to be things where they both don’t want to do something together. I’m sure Jaxson will want to see a movie someday that Avery has no interest in seeing and at some point, my little prince is not going to be so kind with playing dress up with his sister LOL. So while I can, I am going to soak up every minute of parenting my kids together and will not be intentionally scheduling one on one time probably ever.

So before I leave you in a bad mood after reading this lol, let me circle back on what I said in the beginning of this post- if YOU as the parent feel like you need one on one time with a particular child, then DO IT! I believe in following your instincts and if something is telling you that you need that time, I think that means something, I just don’t think you need to label it as something the child needs or framing it in way that creates that competitive environment between children.

Again, not a parenting expert at all, just sharing my thoughts and I would love to hear yours!

Happy Friday!