How to Find Quiet Time in a Noisy House

The next door neighbors have a nicely manicured lawn, cars pulled in to the garage and all riding toys put away. Across the street several neighbors gather to discuss what they will be planting in their spring garden and how they would like to see it rain more. Meanwhile, loud teenagers just keep popping in your front door, sauntering up the stairs to listen in on this week's band practice for your son's hard rock, heavy metal, ear-piercing garage band which you fully support as he really plans to make it big one day. Just as the band and forty of their closest friends start jumping up and down and you catch half a dozen pictures falling off the wall from the vibration, your three-year-old decides now would be a good time not to be potty-trained, and your six-month-old wakes up from their nap, not at all happy after being aroused by the sound of five teenage boys "making music".

Where did the days go when children played outside until dark, came in for dinner and then sat in front of the TV doing homework until bedtime, those days when parents knew their children were around the neighborhood and would undoubtedly come home sometime? Today we as parents, wanting to make our children's lives better, enroll our children in all sorts of after school activities, team sports and play dates, structuring our children's days to the point that they have very little down time, the time we as children all cherished when we could just hop on our bikes and ride to a friend's house or run around in the backyard and play with the dog. Not to say that structured, planned activities are not beneficial to our children for few among us could argue that our current generation has not benefited greatly from after school enrichment activities which have enabled our children to learn new technology, team work and problem-solving skills that will serve them well in to the future. But how does a parent find down time for their children and themselves, that much needed quiet time in the day devoted just to them?

No matter how busy a day we are having, how hectic our work schedules are or what is going on in life right now, a few spare minutes in the day can always be found, minutes to watch your child color a picture or see how happy your teenager is to be in a band which makes him hugely popular with the girls. Watching them sleep really does not count here as we all can peek in on our children sleeping at night as we head to bed ourselves. No, this needs to be time before bedtime when you can block all of the external world's noises out just to focus on your children. The trick here comes in finding time for each child every day, albeit just a few minutes; it will be time they remember as we all do when our parents took a few minutes to pat us on the back for a job well done or called us in from outside and asked about our day. Don't think you can find a few minutes every day? Here are a few suggestions:

• turn off the computer; we've all said we were going to anyway.
• put down the cell phone; text less, talk more.
• work out as a family; talk a walk, ride a bike.
• eat together; clear off the dining room table and use it.

It's amazing how far we have come with technology. Our lives today are all about multi-tasking and getting as much done in one day as we possibly can. But at what cost? Find some time, take some time for you and your children; everything else can wait just a little while.