There are a lot of characteristics that need to be present in a good dad. While not every dad can fill every quality, there are several things that need to be factors in your dadhood skill set.

One of these is spending time with your kids.

There are several ways to accomplish this, and none of them is “better” then any others. You can take your kids out as a group. You can spend some time at home with them. You can spend some one-on-one time with each of your children. There are many ways to accomplish this, and we need to be proficient in most of them.

Last winter, we took our kids, along with my brother and his family, and my mother, and spent the day at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Spending time with all my kids at once was a great opportunity.

Last weekend, my son and I went on a Boys’ Survival Weekend sponsored by our church. That was a great opportunity to spend some time with just one of my kids.

Regardless of how you approach this, you and I need to be spending time, quality time, with our kids.

It was pretty amusing to watch just how much my son looked forward to spending that time with me. The entire day before we went, he followed me around the house so closely that I stepped on his toes a few times. That communicated his excitement pretty clearly.

Over the weekend, we shot shotguns, shot pistols, fished, hiked, searched for things on a nature scavenger hunt, and camped out overnight doing it all. As we were laying in the tent, I asked him what his favorite part was so far. He responded that the best part of the weekend was spending time with me.

He craved that. He cherished that.

And I was reminded once again that time spent with my kids is time well spent.

So, dads, spend some time with your kids. Do it frequently. Do it often.

Be deliberate, Dad!

What have you done to spend time with your kids recently? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.