The influence of parenting time on children’s growth and development

Abstract

Double-salary families are very common nowadays in the modern society. Parents may neglect to be there with their children as their children grow up. In 2014, the Child Welfare League Foundation conducted a survey and found that almost 64 % of parents believing the biggest problem was “no time after getting off work”. To avoid the lack of interaction and care in the long run, this study aimed to explore the influence of parenting time on children’s growth performances. There were two parts of this study: (1) literature review. This part discussed the lifestyles of families with children based on a survey regarding time use and the important features of accompanying activities for growth performances of children aged 0–12; and (2) questionnaire analyses, exploring the influence of time parents spent with their children aged 0–12 on these children’s performances. The questionnaires were issued in Oct, 2014. A total of 30 questionnaires were retrieved. The results are summarized below (ordered by after-work time): 1. Spending time with children after getting off work, during 17:30–18:30 could lead to children positive and cheerful emotions as well as good performances in auditory comprehension. 2. Spending time with children when they were reading during 20:0–21:30 helped them to pay attention to meaningful messages and information regarding the leading role of the story they were reading as well as improving their performances in language capability. 3. Spending time with children during 22:30–24:00 helped to improve their social capability and performances in peer relations.