It's not the quantity of time that you spend with your children. It's the quality that counts. Or is it?

Dr. James Dobson for Family Talk. Maybe you've heard that argument that it doesn't matter how much time you spend with your

children as long as your few moments together are of high quality whatever that

means but the logic of that concept seems rather suspect to me the question is why do we have to choose between those virtues of quantity

versus quality? We won't accept that forced choice in any other area of our lives, so why is it relevant only to our children?

Let me give you an example. Let's suppose you've looked forward all day to go into one of the finest

restaurants in town, and when you you get there the waiter brings you a menu and you order the most expensive steak dinner in the house.

But when the meal arrives you see this tiny little piece of meat in the center of the plate about one inch

square. When you complain about the size of the steak the waiter says sir I recognize

that the portion is small but that's the finest corn-fed beef money can buy and after all it's not the

quantity that matters it's the quality that counts well you would certainly

object and for good reason. Both quantity and quality are

important in many areas of our lives including how we relate to children. In fact

the quantity versus quality argument might be a rationalization for giving our children

neither.

Hear more at Dr James Dobson.org. It's like being pulled over by a cop and you're speeding and you know what justice would be you get a speeding ticket and you pay a fine.

But he doesn't give you justice and he doesn't give you mercy which is just to say,

hey look you deserve a ticket but I'm going to let you go.

That's mercy. And you want to get out and kiss

he's hand. Exactly. But grace is him saying you know what I'm not going to give you

a ticket and here's a cupcake. That's great you didn't deserve that at all and you know it's

outlandish. Grace colors outside the lines. Well welcome to family talk. I'm

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