Hi, I'm Dr. Roberta Marowitz, Florida Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and CEO of academicgamers.com, mental health computer games for children and their families. Today, we're going to be discussing how loving couples with kids make time for themselves. You might be laughing by now wondering, how on earth you could ever find a time to make time for yourselves? But I would tell you, very important for your marriage, very important for your kids for the two of you to have a very strong marriage. And ultimately, what that means is you cannot spend all of your time with your children; you need some privacy and some quiet time and some couple time. So, appreciating each other and making each other a priority by spending time alone with each other and not talking about the children during the entire time is really important. So, sometimes I would tell you that date night really works, and date night really works particularly when it is a regular date time that is anticipated. So, it's a Friday night, it's a Sunday afternoon, it is whatever time you have selected; but that is just the two of you, not other people, it doesn't mean it's not okay to do things with other couples or with family, but we're talking about time alone for the two of you and date night often is one of those times. It doesn't mean you shouldn't go to a movie because you don't get to talk. No, if you are going to go to a movie, then you should also have some talking time as well, but date night become sort of a special time just for the two of you. Mark it in your calendar, don't let other things get in its way, it's really important. If you change the date, then pick another one even if that's just temporarily for that particular week, important. The other is grown up time. You have to have grown up time. Even if you imagine that you're not going to get any time with each other 'till after the children are asleep; let's say its 8:30 at night, you should know that you should be spending at least 20 minutes in the evening with each other where the TV is off, where you're talking with each other, maybe having a glass of wine, you're having a cup of tea, you're, you know, sitting and you are sharing what your days like with some earnest time to be able to talk about plans and dreams and things that just have been on your mind that you want the other person's support for. So, grown up alone time is very important on a daily basis as well. The other is sort of the stolen moments. Every now and then, you look around and you say to yourself, "Hey, there's nobody else in the house but us." All the kids are out, they're at the neighbors, somebody's picked them up and you realized, "Ah, we've got ten minutes, we've got 20 minutes here and there." What I would say is, use that time, it's not the time to say, "Oh, let me run a couple of errands or let me get some stamps on these letters or let me pay some bills." It's the time to take a little bit of stolen time with each other. So, surprise opportunities happen, you should take advantage of them. They're actually fun, it helps build the marriage and its' those little surprises that make thing even just a little bit more exciting in the house when you can be very burden sometimes with all the issues that are going on in the family. Use it wisely, use all of your time wisely. Sometimes you might find that you just get a little bit of time and you hear some music on the radio and somebody grabs the other and they start just dancing in the living room or the kitchen and it's really just fun; it's not a serious thing, but it's just nice. Kids love to see their parents holding hands and touching and being affectionate with each other and they don't, you know, they don't to see anything that's going to be embarrassing of course. But, they do like to see what affection is and it's great for them to be able to see you do do that. So, sometimes you just get behind the other person and you give them a little bit of a shoulder rub; it's just nice, take advantage of all those moments.
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