"What is the importance of quality time with our children in the house?”Not long ago, I chanced to sit with an old friend of mine who is a businessman with seven (7) children. This man’s business necessitates that he travels a lot. Given that I am a teacher he trusts, and that I am knowledgeable of his children, he took time to share with me what he’s doing with the children in order to make good progress with them. He recounted many great things he is doing amidst a myriad of constraints particularly finances. He has mega plans for his children including taking them to the most developed parts of the world to settle there. With such endeavours, fortunately for my friend, he has the financial muscle and network that he believes will see him through with the children. But, now I ask: In this, what is the issue with me as a teacher? What kind of identity will these children have in their adult age? Who is their role model?

In a narrative that took more than an hour with my friend; mostly him talking and I listening, he neither mentioned nor inferred anything about quality time he spends with each of his children. He went on, instead, pointing out: good laptops he brought from Dubai, great study rooms in the house, readily available fast internet, and of course, good meals – as some of the awesome handouts he shares with the children. This prompted me to think about a delicate issue in the modern world: "Parenting and time.”

What is "parenting” first of all? Parenting is an action word that involves all that parents do to raise their children. An online dictionary has it that: "Parenting is that process of raising children and providing them with protection and care in order to ensure their healthy development into adulthood.” During my talk with my friend, I was constantly making my own introspection about the amount of quality time I spend with each of my five children. Again, during my thinking process, I quickly noticed the benefits of the recent government restructuring of start-time of the school day from 8:00 to 9:00 AM; and I realised that parents are still failing to perceive a strong correlation between parenting and time with their children. The incessant deviant children’s behaviours prevalent in schools are a direct result of what Brett Ullman describes as "spaceship parenting.” Ullman describes this parenting model as relating to those parents who "take off” and are not involved in their kid’s lives. This physical or/and emotional absenteeism is slowly creating a degenerative trend in our children’s lives and their overall personality.

Our children are busy but surrounded by parents who are digitally distracted. My son, Ezra, who is just four, has the child-like daring of placing his palm on my face to stop me from looking at the phone and look at him. When it is news time on our home television, as I switch from channel to channel, he places his seat right in front of the set and his question would be: Dad are you seeing me? This digital distraction including social media has created more harm like, indulgent parents, deprived sleeping time for kids, boring indoor lifestyles in our homes, and a plethora of disruptions in our lives. Part of our wider education campaigns should be intentional quality time, with child rearing tips aimed at creating balanced homes and effective parenting. Of course, the knowledge of parenting styles that include: Authoritarian, permissive, uninvolved and authoritative styles with children, do not provide a meaningful sense of direction unless we embrace life-transformation purposes or goals of parenting.

I was in the primary staff meeting this morning, while our new elementary Principal was being introduced and a teacher in Grade One reminded me of the verse in Proverbs 22: 6 "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” He was responding to a generic question from Duff (DNG): "What is the place of a teacher in educating a child the godly way?” Now, I have a colleague who is a theologian that discourages me from rushing for scriptural meanings from bible commentaries; but I am still struggling to heed to his advice. So I came up to my room to check up this verse and found a powerful meaning to it: "There is one right way, God’s way. Early training secures lifelong habits, parents must insist upon this way of teaching God’s word and enforcing it with loving discipline consistently throughout the child’s upbringing.”

The crux of the matter remains, quality time with our children at home! Brett in his great book, "Parenting: Navigating Everything,” brings back an old saying: "The greatest gift you can give someone is time.” If you do not spend time (that’s quality time) with your children, it will be far from easy to influence them. We all need the capacity to have an impact on our children in terms of their character formation. For us teachers, particularly, we ought to build on what parents have started.

Be hallowed as you carry out God’s obligation in the transformation of our next generation!

The writer is a teacher at Kigali Christian School.