If you\'re a parent working full time, there are ways to strengthen the bonds with your child. They won\'t detract from your professional life, and they will enhance your personal life.

• Establish ritual moments; let your child know that those moments are special and important to you. Try having breakfast together every morning, for example, or a before bedtime snack. This is also a good time to read together. Routines and patterns do provide security for children.
• Make your self accessible by phone when you\'re at work. Talk briefly at least once a day with your child. Use notes and letters to show your interest and affection when you can\'t be there in person.
• Include your child in your work life, through pictures taken at the office or maybe a trip there sometime.
• Once in a while, do something special for yourself and your child; you might want to take a sick day from work and spend with your child. Some parents call these mental health days.
• There are all sorts of ways to express love. What parents, who work outside the home lack in time, they do make up for in imagination and love.

One way to be better parent is to make a good habit of spending a 30 minutes with your children. In these 30 minutes you have to do-

• Put the answer phone on, turn the mobile off, do whatever it takes to find 30 minutes of uninterrupted time.
• Find your children and go to their bedroom/playroom/garden.
• Tell them they can choose a toy, a game, or any activity that they’d like you to do together. If your children are too young to choose, get the toys out and just play, or draw, or talk, or sing….spend 30 solid minutes playing, talking and being together.