Focused attention

[Dadofthr33]

I’m a father of three, daughter (13), son (11) and daughter (8). I recently decided since I was working over Christmas I would book time off and I’ve had this week off.

My initial plan (when I booked it last minute) was a break from work and I told my wife I wanted an evening one on one with each of the kids, nothing special just the evening with them and a late night games/films of there choice etc.

We had family over for new year (surprise to me) so it got offset a bit but I had a lads night with my boy yesterday and this evening I’m having a film night with my youngest. Tomorrow will be the eldest turn. Rules are simple it begins at bedtime when they get to stay up with me and essentially pick the activities (cost less bonding).

However, today my wife was upset I’m on AL and finished uni a few months ago so I’m spending my days relaxing watching tv series or playing on the Xbox. She wasn’t annoyed at that as much that I was playing on the Xbox with my boy, she says I’m picking him over the others - my view is that I was playing a game, I didn’t exclude the others he was playing the same game in his room and joined in, yes we spent a lot of the day playing the game but at no point was anyone told they couldn’t join in or use the tv etc.

Now I’m sure there’s judgement about to fly at about excess gameplay but it’s freezing outside so it was an indoor day, the kids had tidied there rooms and my lad fed his pets etc

My concern was more that she was complaining that I was spending time with my son over my daughters. I may be in the wrong but bonding is easier with him, we share most the same interests and share a similar temperament - neither of us are overly sociable and struggle in that area but we are more like pals than anything else. With my daughters we struggle to find common ground and they’re often happier to do there own thing.

I guess I’ve fallen into a trap of not forcing a closer reliance and just being there if they want but is it wrong to spend more time with my son if he wants it when the others are less wanting?

Would appreciate opinions on this, a female perspective etc

If you are finding it more difficult to bond with your daughters then you need to put more energy not less into it.

I am not a fan of ‘love bombing’ or ‘Disney parenting’ where parents suddenly spend lots of time with a child and just as suddenly stops. It is much better to give each child 10 mins a day of your undivided attention.

From your wife’s point of view you get to look after one child while she looks after two. That does not seem fair.

I would say I spend individual time with them regularly as they all have interests/hobby’s and I made a big point that they needed to pick a focus and I would invest my time/money to give them opportunities.

The night each was just an extra thing since I did it a while back with the lad when he had a new interest that required a v.late night and the girls started asking for one.

My main thing is outside of focused activity/hobby the extra time tends to be with the lad.

I asked my youngest last night and she said she noticed but didn’t mind since we’re the only boys she understands our interests overlap more (since I’m not that into unicorns n things)

Not sure if that helped or hurt my thought process as I don’t want her to think I don’t want to spend time with her, just it’s harder to find activities we both enjoy

It sounds like you are spending time doing things you enjoy and using spending time with your child as an excuse for doing it.

As a parent it is your job to make sure you don’t show favourism towards one of your children. There are plenty of parents out there who do things they are not very interested in or even find tedious to suppprt their child and allow them to develop their relationship.