Forty nine minutes

9 June 2010

Dr Rosemary Keenan, Chief Executive of the Catholic Children's Society (Westminster), said, "This is an alarmingly short period of time for children to spend with their parents. Children need to experience the love and warmth of family life if they are to grow up to become emotionally stable and mature adults. One of the key ways in which this is done is by spending time together with a parent or both parents. It is sadly a symptom of modern life that parents have to work such long hours in order to afford a higher standard of living or to make ends meet. Our society needs to understand that children are often the first casualties when we get the work life balance wrong and that cannot be good for the longer term future of a healthy society."

The survey results, which highlighted the need for families to spend more time together, were released in advance of National Family Week. The results also revealed that 66% of children were happy to spend more time at home with their family, rather than going out.

Rosemary Keenan added, "There is a great temptation, on the part of parents, to either think that their children need material goods to make them happy, benefit from extra tuition to achieve academic excellence, or group activities outside of the home to fend off boredom. Our experience at the Catholic Children's Society, from working with children in counselling situations, reveals that they need relational stability and the self esteem which comes from feeling valued for who they are and unconditionally loved by their parents. Such love is hard to convey in 49 minutes per day. No wonder the children in the survey were happy to spend more time with family members."

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