I often think on the quantity of 8 seconds in time. A strange number its true. But there is a reason.
About 25 years ago we watched an old (even then) set of parenting videos in which it was stated that on average, fathers spent a total of 8 seconds communicating with their children per day. And not all in one interaction. (Could not possibly have been toddlers 🙂 )
Now this experiment (recording and measuring the time in a quantity of homes) was done in a day when women were more typically at home and men more typically at work so that has changed in the interim but the purpose of the experiment was to jolt the listeners into the real consideration of how much time we spend relating to our kids each day. Mothers AND fathers alike.
And not just talking to them… handing out instructions… “brush your teeth, find your socks” etc but talking WITH them.
Talking TO them is always communicating more than the words alone… Our tone, expression, exasperation/frustration or self control levels – all speak volumes. More than the 8 seconds impact we might want sometimes.
But 8 seconds? That is scary.
I know some days that count is aroundabout right for me.
And I do not like it when I realise it.
How about you? (I think 8 seconds was it – that’s what my memory has settled on and visited all these years anyway. Forgive and correct me if you know differently. Maybe it was 8 minutes… substantially longer than 8 seconds but not a lot in the scope of a day. Especially not when compared to the amount of screen time a lot of kids have…)