The Attention Meter

In a perfect world I would have nothing to do but play with my children. I would not have dishes to wash or meals to plan, I would not have a house to keep at least mostly clean or laundry to wash and dry and put away. In a perfect world I would not have to worry about my own health, I could just play and have fun with my children. In a perfect world I would have many hours each day to give attention to one child at a time no matter how many children I have. In a perfect world each of my children would wait patiently and do something productive with their time while I was having one-on-one time with one of my other children. I do not live in a perfect world. I was a young college student when I became a mom for the first time, I worked a few hours a week in the evenings when my husband was home and I went to school a few hours in the evenings when he was home, he went to work and school during the day. We had just one child. We did not have cable television by choice and probably a little by necessity. We had a desk top computer and internet but it was used mostly for email and reference. We had no smart phones, we had no cell phones, we had no tablets of any kind. I spent most of my time with my child. However, I was a student and I did have homework and that is when I discovered something about my child, and it has been the same with all of my children and I have four children now. I call it the Attention Meter. It is sort of a system of give and take, a system of supply and demand. I noticed that if I was busy with dishes or laundry or homework and my daughter started to get fussy all I had to do was stop and give her some attention and then after 10 or 15 or 20 minutes, depending on her mood, I could go back to what I was doing and I had that amount of time or more to get my task done. I was an AP parent before I ever heard of the term Attachment Parenting, I had my own theories about raising my daughter that I did not read elsewhere and that I have used with all my children and the Attention Meter works, if I remind myself to stop and take care of my child’s needs first. Now that I have four children (ages 16, 8 ½, almost 6, and 19 months) sometimes I feel too busy to stop and I really want to get my work done and I do make my child wait, but I know that it works better for them and for me if I stop and put them first for a few minutes. After all, in most cases my task will wait. I am still working on it, I don’t live in a perfect world and of course I am not a perfect mother, but I try every day to be able to sit down at night and know I had good moments with each of my children that day.