521: Giving Enough Time To Each Child

Now That We're A Family

A mother shares her experiences balancing attention between young children, emphasizing intentional presence and the spiritual significance

Key takeaways

Parenting young children is a season that demands constant engagement but brings deep rewards.
Older siblings naturally become helpful ringleaders, offering relief and fostering strong bonds.

Main topics

Balancing attention among multiple young children
The role of older siblings as caregivers and play leaders

Notable quotes

"I don't want to be so caught up with these tasks that I can't sit at the feet of Jesus by ministering to my child right now."

Conclusion

Parenting young children, especially multiple under two, is demanding bu

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) All right, Katie, a listener wrote in, a mother wrote in, talking about how she's got a two and a half year old and a six month old right now. And the two and a half year old wants her to constantly play with them. And this is a challenge because she feels like she wants to give this child time and attention. Her heart is there. But then a six month old obviously requires time and attention. And then just life also has requirements of us, you know, keeping a house and just... living life. Uh, and so how have you kind of navigated now with your seventh child nearly here, giving children quality time, uh, the inevitability of there being probably a neat, a needy child or like a season where one child is more needy than other children, or maybe multiple children seem needy at the same time. Uh, and, and how do you kind of go about that as a mother? Uh, cause I mean, again, a lot of us fathers like we're gone. during the day working, and we kind of come home and just embrace the whole family evening routine. So it's a little different for us. What does that look like for you? Speaker 1 (1:06) Yeah, I think you're still very much involved, though. You know, weekends and evenings, and you definitely feel that, too. So I'd be curious to hear your opinions. I think it's funny. I was talking to a mom at church the other day, and she was telling her. oldest daughter, she's like, this is just a season where I have two, two and under, you know, we'll get out of this season. And her first kids were kind of more spaced out. And so it's the first time her having the two, two and under. And I just kind of laughed. I was like, yeah, that's a lot. And those two year olds and under, they always take a lot of your time and energy. And I was just. kind of laughing when I got in the car about it being a season because that has literally been our season for the last 10 years. So we've like never been out of the season of two under two or two, two and under or three, two and under. So anyways, I'm not actually going to say that gets easier. I don't think it does. I feel like that season is still giving Elisha and I a run for our money. But it is very rewarding, like all seasons of parenting. And I would say something that does get easier is when you have an older child, you do get breaks with those two little guys, especially if they're closer in age. I think sometimes maybe if you have like a 10 or 11 year old, you have like a mommy's helper a little bit, but they aren't going to naturally be interested in the same things. So Elisha took... three of our kids into sports. Oh, four of them in. And I had the younger two and I was telling him, it's so funny when you leave the five-year-old home, it's actually way easier. The energy is higher because he's a boy too. And then I have three boys and they're all going crazy, but there's someone to ring lead. And he's like, Hey, let's all go out to the trampoline or let's go get in the bathtub or let's, you know, he has productive energy where the the younger two don't really have that productive energy. So I'm having to engage them if I want them to stay engaged and not get into trouble. And it sounds like that's kind of the season that this listener is in, is that you have to engage those kiddos so that they don't get into trouble. Or otherwise, they're just going to like unroll all the toilet paper or go pull all the Q-tips out of the, you know, the drawer or... you know, get all the band-aids out. That was just what happened last night, you know, so maybe you can relate to some of those things. So just know that the element that is a season is that at some point you're going to have a little productive ringleader in your family that can head up fun play for the younger kiddos. And so that is something that I would encourage. Whoa. Speaker 2 (4:03) Nice. Sounded like me. I'm Speaker 1 (4:06) starting to kick into my like $5, $25. What Speaker 2 (4:11) do they call it? Auctioneer? Speaker 1 (4:13) Auctioneer. Speaker 1 (4:17) that would be the hopeful carrot that I'd share out there is that that part is going to get easier. I do think the intentionality is going to stay high in those years in terms of parenting. There's just a lot of demands for those ages. Yeah, Speaker 2 (4:34) I think that those ages are always, this is coming from my perspective, that two to three and then somebody that's like a year. between like six months and a year and a half in that range. Cause you know, they sleep quite a bit early on as, as newborns. Um, and then depending on your newborn, at least we've had, we've had a mix. We haven't all, not all of our like babies have been easy, so to speak. Uh, but a lot of them have been pretty content, you know, just kind of like sitting in one of those bouncers or, um, yeah, just being, you know, like sitting calmly being held or something like that. Um, but then there comes a point where they are a little bit more uh, I guess opinionated, so to speak, and what their preferences are. And so I think when you have that two to three year old, and then like a six month and older, you know, in that range, um, that is a trying time, but it's like, but does it, it might not get easier, but I don't know if it gets harder than that either in the sense that like, when you have more, more, the children get older, they do find a way to be more self-entertained. And then eventually they are, like you said, the ring, the ringleader. And I think we experience great. moments of that with our older children. I know you've already mentioned that, but I mean, and our older kids, older, older kids are such good sports too, because they're really good older siblings to even the younger kids. So while maybe the three eldest and sometimes the four eldest have a shared interest, whether that be a game they're playing or an adventure they're going on outside, like, or a fort they're building outside. or jumping on the trampoline, they can kind of all hang at the same level on the trampoline, the four eldest can. They all really like their younger brothers as well. They're like Speaker 1 (6:12) obsessed with their little brothers. Right. Speaker 2 (6:14) All of them. And so like the two youngest can't hang on the trampoline with them and they, you know, like they don't do as well out in the woods, you know, with the stickers and stuff. And they can't play board games and they can't color and read books. But the older siblings really just... I don't know, I'm just humbled by their love that they show towards their two youngest siblings, where they, without us saying a thing, will get rubber boots on those two guys. They'll bring them out to the fort they're building. Carry them Speaker 1 (6:44) through the stickers. If they have bare feet, yeah. Speaker 2 (6:46) I mean, this kid Speaker 1 (6:46) is huge. Like, our two-year-old, he just turned three, and he is a big kid, you know, and all his siblings are just hoisting him all around. bring him where they want to go. They feel bad for them. They can't come. They don't Speaker 2 (6:59) want Speaker 1 (6:59) to Speaker 2 (6:59) leave them behind. So, yeah. Speaker 1 (7:01) They're way better siblings than I was. That's for sure. And I do think, though, There is something to, this wasn't allowed in our home and this is getting off topic, but I just want to mention it real quickly. I do think a lot of books and movies and things like that put ideas in kids' head that little siblings are pests. They're annoying. They get in the way. And sometimes our belief as parents, like sometimes I'm more stressed out that this little kid is wrecking their game. And I'm like, he's being annoying. We can put these ideas in our kids' heads, but I am surprised. And when you stay away from a lot of that, their natural inclination is to, yeah, sometimes they're annoyed, but a lot of the time they find so much joy in a little child. And I think that's so sweet. It's one way that they're like, like more Christ-like, I think. Speaker 2 (7:48) Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, as far as putting ideas in children's heads, I think that happens a lot. I think we do that. But yeah, that's what we do as parents. Like we do put ideas into their heads. But when it comes to how they view their younger siblings, their older siblings, you know, their siblings close in age, and then also how they view their other parents. And this is, this could probably warrant its own episode. But another question I saw was from a listener who's her and her husband are in a really busy season. He's working a ton. She's saying like 9 a.m. to, sorry, 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. He's working a lot of times through the weekend. And when he's at home, he's on his phone a lot, taking care of work stuff because they have their own businesses. So you can certainly relate to that. And that is objectively challenging logistically, right? When your time is so, I guess, accounted for outside of work. Speaker 2 (8:41) And this listener said it's really starting to get to the kids, you know, like his absence and he's on the phone all the time. And I've got no doubt that that's hard on children. But I also think as a spouse, you have the opportunity to speak life about. Speaker 1 (8:55) Frame it. Speaker 2 (8:56) Yeah, frame it in a particular way. Daddy Speaker 1 (8:58) loves us so much. He's working this hard. Speaker 2 (9:01) Yeah. And maybe this wife is doing that. But I do think whenever I hear, especially depending on the age of the kids, I don't. I don't think they get as like disgruntled as quickly. I know they don't get as disgruntled as quickly as like we do as adults. Right. And so I think I miss you way sooner than the kids miss you. And the kids probably, and you, I think miss me way sooner than the kids. Miss me. And so if I've got a long day at work or I've been working a lot, you know, you'll call me and maybe the kids hear it in the phone conversations. We're thinking, oh, man, I want you home or whatever it is. You know, like, I mean, you're never like whiny or needy, but I was like, Speaker 1 (9:35) who is this fictional wife? That's Speaker 2 (9:38) me calling you when you've been gone for like 12 minutes. That's not Speaker 1 (9:41) true either. Speaker 2 (9:43) How do we eat food here? Speaker 1 (9:47) You're incredibly self-sufficient. I come home and the house is like spotless. And I'm like, you don't even need me. Speaker 2 (9:53) But anyways, I probably shouldn't have even brought up that question because I do think it warrants more time and energy to put into it. Because there are a lot of things that we could say probably to the husband and to the wife. Because that is something, again, since we're bringing it up, like we figured this out and we need to be reminded of it constantly. The work will never end. It's like the work. will never end. And so it's up to us as men to decide to stop, like to have a rest day, to have a family day, to have an evening. And so that's hopefully something that, you know, especially somebody that's running businesses can learn to do is it's like, yeah, that's just how life always will be is that there's always going to be like 24 hours worth of work seven days a week to do. And it's up to us to stop. Speaker 1 (10:37) Anyways. Speaker 2 (10:37) All right. The Vopr Music Academy fall competition is happening. in October. So there's still time to sign up and get prepared to compete in this year's competition. You don't have to, okay? You don't have to compete in this year's competition, but it's a really inspirational thing to even observe in the community. There are so many kids that put a ton of time and energy into preparing two pieces to perform for the competition. real life prize money is rewarded for the top five in each age category. Here's another thing. If you are somebody that's a musician, this happened last year, you're a musician, you take lessons from somebody else and you're like, I want to be a part of this competition. Guess what? You can be a part of the competition. You can join. There's a coupon below. You can join Vopr Music Academy. You can compete. That's something that was really inspiring to all of the Vopr Music Academy students is they got to see musicians that weren't normally a part of the group calls, a part of the live coaching calls, come join the competition. So it's for anybody and everybody, all ages, not all instruments.