WATCH: Oh, Kmart!
Pamela Poole: Talk About a Choking Hazard! What I Never Expected to…
Parents Spend 49 Minutes a Day With Their Kids, Survey Shows
Filed under: Work Life, In The News, Childcare
Money can't buy you (family) love. Credit: Getty Images
How much time do you spend with your kids? If you're like the parents polled in a U.K. survey, probably about 49 minutes a day.
Sixty-eight percent of the 3,000 parents surveyed cited money as a barrier to spending more time with their families, and 36 percent said money negatively impacted family time, BBC news reports.
The survey -- which also included 1,000 children -- found that parents are passing these values on to their children, as more than 25 percent of 8- to 15-year-olds surveyed said money was the most important thing to them.
Forty-two percent of girls surveyed said they wished they could spend more time with their father but only 6 percent said they wished they could spend more time with their mother, BBC News reports.
"Parents can do more for their children's healthy development by focusing on the time they spend with them doing everyday things than the money they spend," Eileen Hayes, parenting adviser at the NSPCC, a children's charity, tells the news service.
The survey -- which was conducted April 7-12 -- was released in advance of the U.K.'s annual National Family Week, which promotes the importance of families spending time together, BBC News reports.
Related: Planning a Family Roadtrip - Eat, Play, Plan
Your<span>Voice</span>
Ask Us Anything About Parenting
Recently Asked
TheTalkies:RelatedVideos
-
9-Year-Old Steals Parents Savings, Spends It on Candy
Kids love candy. They love it so much they throw fits about it. But a 9-year-old Ukrainian boy spent $4,000 in candy land.
-
Teaching Kids Responsible Spending Habits
In this video, financial planning professional and member of the Financial Planning Association, Marguerita Cheng gives some tips for getting kids to make smart spending decisions, as well as teaching them about debt and investing.
-
How to Get Your Kids to Turn Off Electronics and Spend Some Family Time
AdviceMama, columnist Susan Stiffelman answers questions about how to get kids to turn off electronics and come and have dinner, spend time with the family or do their homework.
-
Kids Answer: What Do Parents Really Do at Work
We unleashed 7-year-old reporter Aiden on AOL's New York City offices, where he asked kids who accompanied their parents to work that day how they imagine their parents spend time at the office.
SitesWeLove
- Site Map
- |
- Staff
- |
- Terms of Service
- |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Trademarks
- |
- Advertise With Us
- |
- About Our Ads
- |
- AOL Downloads
- |
- Contact Us
- |
© Copyright 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Aol Family
ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
5-27-2010 @ 9:29AM
CLM said...Why does this site continue to cite UK studies? The UK and the US do not particularly parallel one another societally.
Reply
6-29-2010 @ 9:55AM
Fiona said...No, the US and the UK do not have the same societal values; the UK has done a much better job than the US to support families where there is only one parent in residence, ensure medical care (the number one reason people file for bankruptcy is due to an inability to pay medical costs for uncovered medical fees by insurance providers) for all citizens and provide maternity leave and supplemental income for families living at the edge of poverty. Essentially, the US citizen is in a much worse position that the UK citizen. Real/net income for both US and UK citizens has not kept up with the economic costs associated with living in either country. All families need to have both parents working in order to maintain the same standard of living as was possible when today's adults were children, while the support systems available as well as the underlying values that most adults believed were basic standards of care to provide for children have not kept up with the care those same adults received from their own parents, or is only available at exorbinant prices. Whether parents like or embrace the idea of 2 parents working is not a position that 80%+ households today can even debate; it is a reality which is necessary to maintain their basic standard of living, and one that is not even as good as the one they had when they were children. Employers don't care because they don't have to; this is a buyer's market for new employees. Employees must/need to keep their jobs, which means there is little they can do to influence or create "family friendly work atmospheres" which would provide additional time for parents to spend with their children without fear their current employment would be in jeopardy of "going away". If the issue is concern over money, it is a reflection of rising costs in the face of shrinking economies and real wages, and the need for most families to do more with far less in real spending power.
6-28-2010 @ 11:48PM
PMT said...CLM asks "Why does this site continue to cite UK studies", with the observation that UK/US societal conditions do not necessarily parallel one another. Does that fact necessarily invalidate either the validity of the study OR the important social trend emphasized by the study mentioned in this article? I think not!! Perhaps we, living in the US, don't like to admit to the same failings found within other cultural/national groups, but the reality is that we DO face the same global/social pressures as everyone else. It's time to face up to the less than stellar American example in today's world and move into the global-community realities of 21st century life.
Reply