Your children need your presence more than your presents. - Jesse Jackson

Yesterday, I went home unusually early and excited to teach my son some basketball for the first time. Not surprisingly, he got on his shoes faster than he usually does, and with a big shining smile. We played, had fun and talked seriously about basketball, life and God. I can see very clearly that he was so happy that I came home early and kept my promise to teach him basketball. After a couple of hours as we walked home he said, “Thank you daddy” – and that made my day.

As parents, and being so busy at work, we tend to drift into ‘auto-pilot’ mode thinking that our kids will just be fine even with our hectic schedules so long as we can put them to good schools and provide them the things they need. The truth is, they need more of us, our time and we need to be more hands on with them like: taking a concious effort to join them to dinner, go to church on sundays, go to a park and find regular time to talk to them individually. No good child was ever brought up in the absence of good ‘hands-on’ parenting.

Being a ‘hands-on parent’ means being in control of ones’ time for the children and doing things with them. This practice provide real-time guidance and quality time that will indelibly mark our children’s memories and shape them according to our will and purpose.