Quality Trumps Quantity

I recently read this article from The Washington Post which reports the surprising results of a longitudinal study on effects the amount of time parents spend with their kids between the ages of 3 and 11:

“In fact, it appears the sheer amount of time parents spend with their kids between the ages of 3 and 11 has virtually no relationship to how children turn out, and a minimal effect on adolescents, according to the first large-scale longitudinal study of parent time to be published in April in the Journal of Marriage and Family. The finding includes children’s academic achievement, behavior and emotional well-being.”

My first reaction to this report was to feel skeptical. But after I read the whole piece I find myself understanding how this finding could be true.

1. Americans Spend More Time With Their Kids Than Literally Anybody Else.

The following paragraph alone caused me to raise my eyebrows. For some reason it was unknown to me that Americans spend more time with their kids than any other parents anywhere:

“Though American parents are with their children more than any parents in the world, many feel guilty because they don’t believe it’s enough. That’s because there’s a widespread cultural assumption that the time parents, particularly mothers, spend with children is key to ensuring a bright future.”

What about these Finnish parents, you know, the ones who consistently produce the best educated children in the world? Aren’t they spending all their free time with their kids? Apparently not.

The article includes a graph courtesy of the Journal of Marriage & Family which shows American mothers average 13.7 hours per week with their kids and fathers average 7.2 hours per week. In 1985 those totals were a paltry 8.5 and 3 hours spent, respectively.

The article goes on to state that not only does the total amount of time spent with kids not correlate with increased positive outcomes, it can actually correlate with increased negative outcomes:

“In fact, the study found one key instance when parent time can be particularly harmful to children. That’s when parents, mothers in particular, are stressed, sleep-deprived, guilty and anxious. “Mothers’ stress, especially when mothers are stressed because of the juggling with work and trying to find time with kids, that may actually be affecting their kids poorly,” said co-author Kei Nomaguchi, a sociologist at Bowling Green State University.”

2. Quality Over Quantity

The report goes out of its way to emphasize that the time parents spend with their kids is still valuable, but perhaps only valuable in direct correlation to the level of quality inherent in the time spent together:

“That’s not to say that parent time isn’t important. Plenty of studies have shown links between quality parent time — such as reading to a child, sharing meals, talking with them or otherwise engaging with them one-on-one — and positive outcomes for kids. The same is true for parents’ warmth and sensitivity toward their children. It’s just that the quantity of time doesn’t appear to matter.”

This make perfect sense to me, especially in the context of the current state of restaurants.

Today when you take your family out to dinner to a restaurant, scenes like this are what you will most likely see.

A dinner like this is, unquestionably, time spent together as a family. But what this study shows us is that the positive impact on our kids when we spend time with them in this way is effectively zero:

“I could literally show you 20 charts, and 19 of them would show no relationship between the amount of parents’ time and children’s outcomes. . . . Nada. Zippo,” said Melissa Milkie, a sociologist at the University of Toronto and one of the report’s authors.”

This study confirms something many parents understand intuitively; that time spent together as a family is not valuable without high-quality interactions, listening to one another with attention, engaged conversation, etc.

3. The Teen Caveat

I wasn’t surprised by this finding at all, the one that shows that the time spent between parents and adolescents has a strikingly positive correlation for positive outcomes:

“The one key instance Milkie and her co-authors found where the quantity of time parents spend does indeed matter is during adolescence: The more time a teen spends engaged with their mother, the fewer instances of delinquent behavior. And the more time teens spend with both their parents together in family time, such as during meals, the less likely they are to abuse drugs and alcohol and engage in other risky or illegal behavior. They also achieve higher math scores. The study found positive associations for teens who spent an average of six hours a week engaged in family time with the parents. “So these are not huge amounts of time,” Milkie said.”

Time spent in conversation over a meal has probably been the mainstay of family life since the dawn of man.

The results of this study show that when we choose to sacrifice this time to text alerts, television, too many extracurricular activities or simple indifference, we lose invaluable opportunities to improve outcomes for our kids.

I would argue that parents who sacrifice focused family mealtime also lose invaluable opportunities to improve outcomes for themselves.

In Conclusion

This article continues to stir up a lot of controversy. I found myself at odds with the findings until I read the whole article and began to understand how quality time trumps sheer number of minutes together as a family.

On a personal note, I felt somewhat relieved to learn that the limited amount of time I spend with my kids each evening when I return from work can still have a big impact on their outcomes later in life.

It also served as a reinforcement about how important it is for me to spend my limited time with my kids each day in an engaging way.

I hope you’ll read it and come to your own conclusions about where your family stands on this touchy topic. Then, let us know what you think in the comments below!