Families spend more time together than ever before
UK families are now spending more quality time together than ever before, according to new research.
Despite juggling two or more jobs and having to take the children here there and everywhere, most families manage to enjoy two hours and 23 minutes of each other’s company every day before the little ones go to bed.
By comparison, only 25 minutes are spent hooked to the phone and only 50 minutes are spent working from home.
Indeed families are working hard to improve their work life balance, by ditching household chores and work in favour of snuggling up with a movie, reading together or playing in the garden.
The study also revealed that parents believe they are now spending more time with their own family than they did as children with their parents.
A spokesman for Tiny Pop which commissioned the study of 2,000 parents to celebrate the recent arrival of Miffy’s Adventures, Big and Small, said: “It’s great to see that work and mobile phones aren’t stopping parents from spending time with their family.
“In the past we’ve seen that mum and dad are working from home, taking calls during the evening and taking on long commutes which have eaten in to their family time.
“But this study has revealed that families are really starting to spend undistracted time together – more than ever.
“It seems their views on what ‘quality time’ means has changed too, it’s not just day trips and long walks anymore.”
But despite the change in attitudes towards family life, more than half would love to spend even more time with their kids.
When asked what they consider to be quality time with their children, parents agreed shared activities such as arts and craft, cuddling on the sofa to watch TV or reading a book together before bed were important.
However, half of UK parents now also consider more mundane tasks such as cleaning up after playtime and washing the car as valuable time – if done together with their child.
Four in 10 parents also feel driving their children to after school clubs is another opportunity to spend some precious moments together.
Cooking the dinner and the food shop can sometimes get in the way of proper family time; however 85 per cent of parents are now cooking with their children for fun.
And more than one third are using the weekly food shop as time to bond with their young off-spring.
In a throwback to days when it was considered a day of rest, Sunday was revealed to be still the best day of the week for modern parents to spend quality time with their family.
However the survey showed that many families will squeeze what they can out of weekdays. In the mornings, parents believe they manage to fit in almost half an hour together over breakfast before school and work.
But if a day comes when they have to miss out on their much needed time as a family, the main reasons will be because parents are at work or having to complete the household chores.
The Tiny Pop spokesman added: “Let’s make the weekly shop fun with our kids, let’s turn cooking into entertainment, what we’ve traditionally seen as chores can actually be a great time to bond and spend fun, quality time with the kids. It’s great to see!”
Tiny Pop – home to Miffy’s Adventures Big and Small, Mike the Knight and My Little Pony – is the fastest growing kids’ channel in the UK and available on Freeview (126), Sky (617), Virgin Media (737) and Freesat (605).
