It is evident that the most precious thing and best gift parents can give their children is quality ‘time’. Our children don’t really care about anything else as long as we spend a little quality time with them. A personal investment in our children is much more important to them than any toy, video game, or electronic gadget. We usually try to buy them brand name shoes, the most expensive clothes, the most up-to-date video games and toys thinking that we could make up or compensate the time we should have spent with them. To our surprise, these sneaky and under-handed attempts do not work at all with our children because they are smart enough to understand that we are trying to bribe them with expensive materials that cannot substitute the quality time we should spend with them. Quality time spent with a child makes a more positive, longer-lasting impression than anything else. Parents who shop for their children's holiday gifts should consider putting their wallets away and start giving the gift of quality time now. The following touching and poignant story received from a good friend will give us a better perspective about the importance of quality time and our awkward relationship with our children.

This is a moving and pathetic story of a man who came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year old son waiting with enthusiasm for him at the door. As soon as the father entered into his house, his son looked at his face to see if his father is in a good mood. When he made sure that he was quite okay, the son said, "Daddy, may I ask you a question?" The father replied without hesitation, but with unattractive tone, "Yeah sure, what it is?" Any way, the son asked his father, "Daddy, how much do you make an hour?" The father replied impatiently with anger and loud noise. "That is none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?" The son did not give up and replied, "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?" The father calmed down a little bit and said, "If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour." The little boy replied, with his head down, "Oh, Daddy, may I please borrow $10.00 from you?" At this time the father was furious, but did not have any idea about the intention of the child. The father said again with anger, "If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money from me to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. Remember I work hard everyday not to satisfy for such childish behavior." The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. Though the little boy knows that his father loves him, he was not happy with the spontaneous reaction of his father about his request.

Finally, the father sat down on his chair and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions. In his mind he kept asking how he dares to ask such questions only to get some money. After about an hour or two, the father had calmed down, and started to think and put things in perspective. After he came back to his full senses, he said to himself, “Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10.00. After all, he really does not ask for money very often”. The father went to the little boy's room. After knocking he opened the door and asked the little boy, "Are you asleep, son?" The little boy patiently replied "No daddy, I'm awake." The father said calmly, "I have been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier. It has been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here is the $10.00 you asked for." The little boy sat straight up, happy and smiling and he yelled, "Oh, thank you daddy!" Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some crumpled-up bills. The father saw that the little boy already had some money and he started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, and then looked up at his father, but the father grumbled, "Why do you want more money if you already have some?" The little boy replied, "Because I didn't have enough, but now I do." The little boy added, "Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you." The father was crushed when he heard and understood all what his son was trying to do from the very beginning. He put his arms around his little son, and he begged for his forgiveness. The next day the whole family had more than one hour to have dinner together and catch up with so many things and the gathering became a habit thereafter..

The story stirs deeply into our hearts and evokes a strong emotional response calling forth for pity or sympathy for the little boy. The moral lesson of the story is loud and clear. The first lesson is that we need to pay attention and listen to our children very carefully with all patience in order to understand their feelings and emotions. In the story, the father was not patient to listen to his son because for every statement the son made, the father responded with anger and loud noise. He should have welcomed with joy every question that comes from his son and should have responded gladly after listening and having a complete understanding of what his son had to say. God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice and talk once and that makes a whole lot of sense.

The second most important lesson is just a short reminder to all of us working so hard in life and pouring ourselves more time into work than to our family. Consciously or unconsciously we forget to spend a little time with our children because we forget our priority in life. We should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts, and those who we love very much. If we die tomorrow working hard and without even saying “I love you son or I love you daughter,” the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family and friends we leave behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. Many of us say that we are very busy at work and don’t have time for anything else. But, we spend more time in front of the TV watching sports and soap opera than in front of our children interacting with them for mutual understanding. Those who make the worst use of time are the first to complain and say that they don’t have much time for anything. Those that make the best use of their time for their children have none to spare for something else. The fact remains that there is always time for our children if we make the priority to spend quality time with our children. We need to understand that time cannot be managed. Time is uncontrollable; we can only manage the use of time by managing ourselves. Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. The bad news is that time flies, but the worst news is that we fail to use it on our children. If we want to make good use of our time, let’s give it to our children. Thus, quality time spent with children enhances and reinforces the parent-child relationship, so that in their later life, as they get older, children will emulate their parents' values and attitudes and that makes the gift of quality time the greatest gift of all. It can certainly decrease the possibility or the probability of our children being involved in any undesirable behaviors. God bless them!