Are You Chasing Dollars or Your Kids?

 by: Brian Maloney

Striking a perfect balance between work and home today can be difficult task for most of us. However, do you ever wonder if your spending too much time chasing money and not enough with your children?

Everything in moderation right? Haven’t we been told this countless times and yet still we tend to find ourselves constantly plunging into excess.

It seems that we always do too much of one thing for the sacrifice of many others and therefore, seemingly neglect many times the more important aspects of life.

Nothing can be more important than your children!

This held true yesterday and will still hold true tomorrow. It is a mindset that if not taken seriously enough, can percolate throughout the family and have a compounding effect of less time spent, that leads to inevitably detrimental consequences.

So how much work and money acquiring is too much?

That is the question of balance and in practically every aspect of one's life, it needs too be addressed.

If the degree of work is such that it is compromising your time with your children because you are too tired to play with them or your job requires more than a 40 hour work week, it is time to re-evaluate your position.

Another excellent sign is if children vent their frustration by telling the parent that they never see them or conveying this information to the other parent.

It can be a constant struggle to provide outside the home and then become a good provider by spending time inside the sacred confines of the home.

Although saying you would like to spend more time with your children and doing it, as the old adage says, this is easier said than done.

Taking action by introspectively evaluating your grade as a parent; and then understanding the primary need to spend time over and above everything else including income, is a needful first step.

Moreover, when this evaluation is done, the next step would be a committed implementation regimen.

Scale back hours at work specifically to spend more time with your kids. Make a time or date as many days a week to spend together as a family and do whatever, but spend the time.

It could easily be argued that time is much more important than money, especially to a child. From age 0 to 18, you have them to shelter, love, and care for but if you blink, they might just be at high school graduation and heading for the dorms.

The most important gift a kid can receive from a parent is quality time spent not another twenty dollar bill and a send off to the mall. This mindset is just that, a way to set your mind!

Resolving to spend more time with your children can and will be the most important parts of your life, and theirs, because when they look back on their healthy childhood, you will definitely be in the picture.