How To Get More Quality Time With Kids As A Police Family

When shifts are long and unpredictable, family time can be affected. Here are a few ideas for how to get more quality time with kids even as a law enforcement family!

There’s a lot to be said for how being married to a police officer impacts you as his wife. That’s hard as it is.

Hard enough to, you know, write a blog or two on 😉

But seriously. And then when you start having kids and family time starts becoming a thing, the lack of time you have compared to other families feels even more pressing.

As you navigate mom guilt and concerns over the fear of the scary world around you, it can be hard to cope with the lack of quality time as a family.

Because you know it’s so important.

You know that a good relationship with their father makes the uncertainty of Daddy’s shifts easier to deal with. It makes missed holidays less of a big deal. It helps keeps your kids safer by giving them more support and motivation to make the right decisions. Among many other benefits that ANY family would want!

But – as with a lot of other awesome things – it also has lots of barriers… not the least of which is the fact that your officer works some crazy hours. Plus your job, if you work outside the home. Plus housework. PLUS school.

So how the heck can you navigate those challenges and get more family time in?

How To Get More Quality Time With Kids As A Police Family

Make it a priority.

The thing is, you aren’t going to accidentally have quality time with your kids.

We live in a busy world with a million things demanding our attention at any given time. That means that to make sure your energy is spent wisely, you have to be intentional about it

Think about why it’s important to you to have quality time with your kids.

Think about what kind of time you’ve had with them recently and whether it’s been positive or negative.

Think about the stuff you enjoy doing with your kids, that doesn’t feel like work.

Think about the stuff they love doing with you, even if it takes a little more mental effort on your part.

Think about how much you love your kids and how important it is to have a relationship with them.

Those things will help you make quality time with them happen more frequently, because it’ll become that much more important to you. You’ll be more motivated to do the following tips!

Have kid and mom/dad date nights.

This may not be entire-family quality time with your kids, but it’s super helpful especially if you’re in a big family and/or you have kids (or you) are more of an introvert (hand raised right here!)

Arranging monthly “date nights” with kids and mom or dad so they can have quality alone time is really important. It gives kids an opportunity for a greater connection and alone time to talk about stuff that’s important to them without siblings interfering.

They don’t have to be anything big or expensive. Even just a solo trip to McDonalds can do wonders for your relationship!

Again, while this isn’t for the entire family all at once, building those individual relationships more deeply will help everything run a little more smoothly!

Take a few minutes here and there.

The big secret to getting more quality time with kids is to take advantage of the time you can get together.

It’s not about getting hours and hours of time together. I mean, there’s no doubt – hours and hours (or even days… maybe a week or two vacation… anyway) sounds awesome if you find the right activity.

But if you’re in a season where it’s just not feasible, that’s okay too.

Taking 5-10 minutes as they arise to read a book, build LEGO for a bit, play a short game of tag, or otherwise truly connect as a family while having fun goes a long way.

Just a few minutes of fun and undivided attention can go a long way to helping your children feel more connected to you and your officer – and vice versa!

Focus on love languages.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the 5 love languages in your marriage, but have you ever considered how this impacts your relationship with your kids?

In fact, there’s a love languages for kids book that’s incredibly useful in making sure your kids feel loved.

Communicating love in the way they understand it helps them feel more like a priority to you and your officer, even in the busy-ness of life.

By making sure the little time you have is used according to the things that are most important to them, you can make sure you’re making the most of your family time.

Whether you have toddlers or teenagers, using this book/approach is a huge game-changer!

Think outside the box.

Your family isn’t normal, and that’s okay. Accept it, move on, and make the most of your differences!

If your officer is going to be home super early in the morning, why not try to plan family time for breakfast? If your kids are pretty flexible, try to get up early and eat breakfast or watch the sunset as a family.

Heck, my husband has fond memories of when his dad couldn’t sleep and he would wake him up and take him for a drive.

If you don’t restrict your quality time with kids to the “typical” things like family dinners or family game night, it opens up a wide range of possibilities.

Make use of electronics.

While they have their downsides, electronics are a great way to connect when you can’t be face to face and in person as a family.

The Marco Polo app is an especially great way to connect because you can take little videos throughout the day to send to your officer and he can send ones back. It’s a wonderful way to feel connected throughout the day – because it allows face-to-face communication even when real life face-to-face time isn’t feasible.

Hey, speaking of which, you can do a FaceTime call when possible too! My kids love FaceTime calls to Daddy, especially when they’re sad about something.

When that’s not an option, we go back to Marco Polo.

Whatever you use, electronics can help bridge the gap and bring you more quality time with kids!

Consider homeschooling.

While this might not be an option for you and your family, hear me out! Homeschooling is great because it super opens up your schedule as a family. It means you’re not beholden to the school year schedule or the regular 5 day a week schedule, which your husband isn’t on anyway.

In my humble opinion, homeschooling is ideal for law enforcement families because of its flexibility. We’re interest-led schoolers/life learners/unschoolers (term changes depending on who you talk to) which makes things extra flexible. And I could totally talk your ear off about that!

But even if you follow a stricter curriculum, you’ll probably spend less time on it every day than you would helping your kids with homework. True story.

Add to that the lack of driving during rush times to get the kids to school, and I’m beyond on board. Ha.

Not sure about it? Here’s a good pro/con list for homeschooling.

Again – I appreciate that this is not an option or the ideal for every family, and that’s okay! But if you’re on the fence, I wanted to throw it out there 🙂

No matter what your family life currently looks like, I know you can sneak in a little extra family time – and it will be worth every effort!

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How To Get More Quality Time With Kids As A Police Family