As moms, it can be easy to fall into auto-pilot mode and feel like your life is all work and no play. Wake up, breakfast, school dropoff and pickup, homework, and then bed. For moms with babies, it feels like a never-ending cycling of feeding, changing diapers, and holding your breath while they nap! Amidst all this craziness, it is absolutely possible to slow down and maximize quality time with your children. “Quality time” sometimes gets touted as something you need to carve out of your busy schedule, such as an hour or two at a museum or zoo, or a movie you see together as a family. Quality time actually just means spending time with your children to help them learn about how you live your daily life, so you can model an example for them to follow as they grow. Use each experience or task from your day (or as many as possible) as a teaching opportunity to explain and show your kids how to cook, clean, garden, and interact with friends, neighbors and the outside world. Essentially, do things together. Here are some practical ideas to get started:

1. Let them watch you pray and worship. It sets a good example and normalizes worship for them. Show them how you incorporate it into daily life. For example, teach them how to make wudhu, and go through the steps with them as they do it. Pray any salahs you can together as a family. Or, make it a habit to read Quran in the common areas of your house, rather than only when you're alone. 

2. Walk them through your thought process for simple things like the dinner menu. When you go grocery shopping, talk about what you’ll make for dinner and how the ingredients will go together when you cook it.

3. Engage in conversations with them during car rides. Discuss your daily plans, or what your day has been like. Ask them questions about what they see and find interesting. Consider asking deep questions as they look out the window and get an opportunity to ponder over them.

4. Designate screen-free time for the entire family. Turn off your phone and TV, and read, play a game, wander the great outdoors of your nearby park! Relish their presence and curiosity, and engage their endless questions that usually drive you crazy – you know you’ll miss it one day!

5. Enlist their help in household chores. Teach them how to pick stuff up, fold laundry, wash dishes, clear the table and home spaces. Guide them along, but don’t hover or immediately correct everything they do because they’ll learn to rely on you to “fix” whatever they attempt to do. These also make great moments for conversations! 

6. Reconnect before bedtime. Read a story and surah together and talk about your pits and falls of the day. You don’t even have to have a conversation, but just a few minutes of cuddling and hugging every night will amount to hours of loving moments your children will one day look back fondly upon.

7. Fix broken household items, repair leaky faucets, and paint the fence together. Use any opportunity for carpentry to bond with your kids and show them how to be resourceful, patient, and money-responsible – skills that will last them a lifetime!

These tips are designed to give some food for thought about how you can use your daily life and day-to-day tasks as opportunities to bond with your children and maximize quality time (read: non-screen time ;) ) with them. Personalize it so it fits your style and schedule, and relish the memories and moments you are able to create with your children, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem. In the long run, they will pay off and be the foundations for their success!

P.S. Remember to make time for light conversations and joking around with your children! Don't use every opportunity you have with them to lecture or teach. Have some fun too!