How Do We Use Our Time?

This summer was an important one for me. I had a chance to spend two weeks in Chicago with my parents, I got married, and I spent a week in Mexico with my wife. I pretty much used all of my free time this summer reaffirming relationships that are important to me. It was wonderful, and it got me thinking about something that I have always thought a lot about, time. I was taught time is the most important commodity I own, and the funny thing about it is that I can’t tell you how much I have or how I might be able to gain more. Time doesn’t really work that way, does it? It is the most important thing I have in the world, and for all I know, I may be almost out of it. So, I don’t take my time or anyone else’s lightly, and I am constantly adjusting how I am spending that unknown balance.

 

I also often reflect on my time as a child and adolescent. Being a kid like I was and growing up where I did, I required people’s time just to get by. I was lucky to be blessed with family, adults, and friends who were overly generous with their time and spent it feverishly on me. Sitting with me and just listening, checking in when I seemed off, or even forcing a conversation to show they cared—they taught me from a young age what an immense impact time could have on my perceived worth. The time people put into me let me know they cared, and in turn, I learned I mattered. No matter how small or childish my issues were, people gave me time to process them. It proved the greatest gift I could receive.

 

From that childhood grew a counselor determined to donate back the debt of time he owed. Throughout my career, I have been fortunate enough to meet kids and families who trusted me and have formed many deep relationships with them by simply giving them my time: stopping them in the hallways when their head is looking at their shoes, listening to a vent session about recess when the game they wanted to play was not chosen, and genuinely caring about things that mattered to others no matter how small they may have seemed to me. Children need and deserve our time. They do not have kid problems, they have their problems. They do not live in the kid world, they live in their world, and what’s going on in it matters to them just as much as what is going on in yours matters to you.

 

I’ve had a lot of parents throughout my career ask me for various approaches and strategies to most anything kid-related and all my responses always surround the concept of time. Make time for them, and allow them time. They need it. Not time while you’re cooking, not time while you type, real-time. Not time that we entertain at Disney, not while we watch your show, but actual time to listen and learn who they are. Learn, not tell. Children and people are the most valuable thing this planet has to offer, so let’s offer them the most valuable gift we have and be sure we are using our time appropriately. There is not one trick that can circumvent the time required for a healthy relationship no matter which kind. Below is an article regarding quality time with children: