Obviously, you can't leave all bonding duties up to your child, especially as kids get older and the pull of social life is stronger. So how do you initiate bonding with your child? It's not about having fun together per se — you don't need trips to Disney World or enrollment in special activities together. It's also not about checking off chunks of time spent together, because you can spend an hour with your child and still avoid bonding. It's about the quality of your interaction. Engage. Pay attention. Don't check out from your kids mentally on a regular basis.

Bonding on Crazy Weekdays

Cooking dinner is much easier (not to mention faster and safer) without a two-year-old on your hip or a five-year-old standing on a wobbly chair, trying to stir spaghetti sauce for you. You don't necessarily have to cook together; there's no single activity that can guarantee a bonding experience. That being said, there is a technique you can use for a quick check-in with your child if, for example, you only have two hours between the time everyone gets home and the time your kid needs to go to bed.

“Five-minute freeze” is a technique in which you spend five full minutes exclusively engaged with each child. For most families, that's five or 10 minutes of putting off whatever else is pressing on you, like returning phone calls or cooking dinner. Before or after dinner, or when you wake up your child but before she is out of bed, you can formally or informally — but routinely — spend five minutes with each child.

If your child is young, a cuddle on the couch, no TV on, no staring out into space, works well. With school-age kids, you can participate in snack time, sitting down to share your child's crackers and juice, indoors or outdoors.

With an older child or teen, especially if you're playing Family Taxicab every afternoon, you can settle for having your teen sit up front next to you (or in the driver's seat, if he is already driving) and turning off the radio, cell phone, and other wireless appendages for the duration of the ride. This rule has to apply to you, too — no phone calls. One of you will be paying attention to the road, but it can still work as a five-minute freeze if that's all you've got.

Bonding with Leisure

Leisure? What's that? If you're scoffing silently to yourself, you're not alone. Like others around the world, Americans have seen a huge decline in leisure time over the last 30 or so years. However, Americans still enjoy a relatively nice quality of life with some freedom over how to spend their time, if not on a day-to-day basis, then certainly in the grand scheme of things.

In other words, you choose whether to sign up for pee wee soccer or to leave Saturdays open to spontaneity; you choose whether to stay up late or get up early to work out; you choose whether to get a dog that needs nightly walking or a cat that doesn't.

Determine how to spend some upcoming free time with all or part of your immediate family. Find a low-stress activity you can all engage in, such as a trip to a local park, a picnic in the grassy area of your housing development, or a walk on the beach or other open area. Make sure it allows for face-to-face time with your kid. For example, a long bike ride could be great if:

• It's in an area that allows you to ride close to your child You can hear each other and talk when you want

• You can stop whenever you want to take a drink of water or get a snack

• You as the adult are not focused on achieving a distance, speed, or educational goal during the ride

• Your child is excited about the ride and wants to do it

• You are relaxed about the ride rather than stressed or worked up about finding trails, parking, making your child comfortable, staying safe, etc.

In a structured lifestyle like the modern American one, “free” activities like going on a bike ride often are eschewed for prepaid, scheduled activities, like joining a cycling club. Sometimes, people even consider open-ended activities to be “wasting time.” If you think that's the case for you, penciling in time for leisure isn't exactly the solution to not having it, but it can help you get there over time.