By psychologist and family counsellor Giannis Xintaras
Most parents love their children deeply—there is no doubt about that. What is often missing is not love, but the time and space for that love to be expressed without hurry.
Daily life for most families moves at a pace that leaves little room for genuine connection. School, work, activities, private lessons, responsibilities… Everything is necessary, and everything seems urgent. As a result, our relationship with our children is often reduced to organising their lives: waking them up, taking them to their activities, checking their homework and reminding them what they need to do.
At some point, however, it is reasonable to ask ourselves: How much time do we truly spend with them when we have nothing to teach, correct or organise?
Summer offers us a rare opportunity. The pace slows down, making room for something that often seems difficult to find during the rest of the year: time together.
Interestingly, children do not usually remember the most expensive holidays or the most impressive hotel. They remember the moments when they felt that their parents were genuinely present. A game on the beach that lasted longer than usual, a walk with an ice cream in hand, a board game played one evening on the balcony, or a conversation that began for no particular reason and continued late into the night.
For children, connection is rarely created through major events. It is built through many small, repeated moments—moments when a parent is not merely physically present but fully available, body and soul. They are not constantly checking their phone, thinking about what they have to do next or rushing to finish the game and move on to another obligation. They allow themselves, even briefly, to enter their child’s world—and that is not always easy.
To an adult, playing with sand or listening to an endless conversation about a child’s favourite characters may seem insignificant. For the child, however, something much greater than a game is happening at that moment. They feel that someone considers their world important enough to want to understand it. This experience becomes the foundation of their relationship.
There is, however, something else worth remembering: summer holidays are not an end in themselves. They are not the one month in which we must make up for everything that was missed during the previous eleven. They are, above all, a reminder. They show us how a relationship can change when there is more time, less pressure and greater emotional availability. Perhaps they also invite us, when we return to everyday life, to consider what we can keep alive from that experience.
We may not be able to keep every afternoon free, but we can offer fifteen minutes of genuine presence. We may not be able to go on holiday often, but we can sit beside our child without distractions, even for a short while. We may not be able to play for hours every day, but we can give them a few minutes that truly belong to them.
Ultimately, children do not need a perfect parent who always finds the ideal way to spend time with them. They need a parent who, amid the demands and pace of their own life, remembers to return to their relationship again and again.
That is what children will remember as they grow older—not only the places they visited or the holidays they enjoyed, but the feeling that, whenever they were with you, they had your attention, your interest and your joy.
And this is an experience that deserves not to be confined to August. It deserves to become a small but lasting way of being a family throughout the year.
By psychologist and family counsellor Giannis Xintaras
