There’s a last time for everything. A last time they sit on your lap, a last time they hold your hand in public. Make the most of it.

That’s from a granddad I interviewed. He’s right. My youngest son just had his 10th birthday. Soon he’ll be in secondary school.

By the time we know whether we’ve done a good job as a parent, it will be too late.

The only proxy we can use is the strength of the relationship we have with our children.

A strong relationship is a function of the amount of time spent together multiplied by the quality of that time.

So if we spend loads of time together, but the quality of that time is negative, that’s not good.

If we spend very little time together, but it’s high quality, that’s better.

So if we want to be the best parents we can be, we need to make more time and make more of the time we’ve got.