I joined a new page on fb geared towards parents of four or more kids, and they have ‘community questions’ for the moms & dads of many to answer. You answer as a comment, but i thought the question was blog worthy (especially, since i haven’t blogged in forever)
[via 4 kids or more]
do you believe in giving your kids individual time? And if so, how do you make the time?

As a mother of four kids, under 10, all in various stages of development, this is a loaded question.
my response:
Do i try to make equal, separate, individual time for them? Of course i do. Does it always work out? Not always.
Am i going to beat myself up over it? Nope.
A long time ago, when i was still a mother of two, i read a quote somewhere that stuck with me.
It said “Treating everyone equal does not mean that everyone gets the same, it means everyone gets what they need” and it works, even for parenting.
Not always do each of my four children get the exact same amount of time, but they do get the time they individually need, and with the same amount of attention, love and patience.
It may mean that my #2 gets 15 mins of a story, but #1 only gets 10 mins of serious talking, #3 gets a story and snuggle for 20 mins while #4 gets 30 mins of nursing and snuggling. I don’t think the time is going to be what they remember. I don’t think #1 is going to grow up thinking about how he only got ten mins of my time on friday while #2 got 15. I like to think what he’ll remember is that his mom stopped, and listened, uninterrupted when he needed me too.
Quality, not quantity, i guess that’s what we do.


I’m not saying that #1 *always* gets the least, or Lady Girl the most. I’m also not saying that it’s always like this.
What my point is, i’m not going to hate myself or feel guilty if they don’t all get exactly the same amount of individual time everyday.