Our children need our time. And if it really mattered enough to us, we’d find it for them. That rather uncom­fortable truth is the same, however legitimate our excuses sound. The problem is that, very often, we fail to grasp just how important our attention is to them. And of course, one of the main reasons for this mistake is that we don’t spend enough time with them for it to become obvious to us.

It’s a Catch 22 situation. Giving our kids time comes low on our agenda because we don’t spend long enough with them to realise how much they need. And because it’s low on our agenda, we never have the time to discover that we need to change our priorities. Until, that is, it’s too late.

Of course, knowing all this is one thing, but actually making the time is another. It’s like sport. We all want to be fit, strong and healthy. But for the vast majority of us, being out of shape is a habit we’ll never change, for one simple reason: we don’t get up at 6 o’clock every morning and put in the effort to do the training.

A commentator on the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta described them as an event where ‘the world’s fittest performed for the world’s fattest’. And as most Britons worried about catching ‘Mad Cow Disease’ from eating BSE-infected beef, one doctor warned that the public was far more at risk from the onset of ‘Mad Couch Disease’. You were more likely to get ill from watching too much sport on TV, he argued, than from eating beef. Spectating is now by far the most popular and dangerous sport there is. We’re becoming a nation who’re so keen on sport that we spend endless hours sitting in front of the TV, watching other people taking exercise rather than taking it ourselves. It’s true what they say about football: 22,000 people in need of exercise watch 22 people in need of a rest!

But in exactly the same way, and for the same reasons, many of us end up settling for being spectators in our kids’ lives. Making time for your family requires the same kind of dedicated, disciplined effort and activity as training for sport. The problem is that so many good intentions fall flat because the goals we set are just too ambitious. Just as you shouldn’t start trying to get fit by pledging to run a half-marathon every morning, so it’s equally daft to promise to make radical changes to your lifestyle overnight. Even if you manage an initial burst of enthusiasm, this kind of drastic change rarely works in the long run. It’s much better to build up your ‘family fitness’ slowly, in a well disciplined but not overly demanding way.

Don’t promise to make unrealistic changes to your diary or working habits that are just too much, too soon. Instead, set some attainable goals. Learn to walk before you try to run. As all successful business people know, goals must be realistic and sensible. Rather than trying to get home from work two hours earlier every day, have a go at thirty minutes, even if it’s only twice a week, so you can read your child a story before they go to bed. Rather than pledging to spend every night in and take every weekend off to be with your children, dedicate one night a week and one weekend a month as uninterruptible family time when you do something together. The secret is to start small, but make it a priority, and apply the same dedication to achieving your objective at home as you would to an objective at work.

Don’t be fooled into seeing the task ahead as so daunt­ing that you just put it off. Tomorrow never comes, so begin today. The clock is ticking and time is running out. So whatever you do and however you do it, start making time for your kids today. I’ve slowly learnt that it’s easier to set time aside and not allow other things to get in the way if we plan in advance to do something as a family: treats, outings, holidays or surprises. I’ve also learnt that what we do isn’t half as important as the fact that we do it together.

But it’s also important to spend time with each child individually. I often take one of our children to breakfast on Saturdays. We usually go to the local McDonald’s, because it’s cheap and cheerful, but it’s still special. It’s a great time to talk by ourselves, laugh, tell jokes and catch up on things without all the distractions of home. And occasionally I take one of our daughters out on a ‘date’ to a restaurant somewhere – just her and me. Or book to go to a football match with one of the boys. None of it needs to cost the earth. You don’t have to take your kids to the Ritz to make it special. You just have to take the time. As they say, the way kids spell ‘love’ is T.I.M.E. And the funny thing is, however reluctant you are to do it at first, you’ll probably end up enjoying it even more than they do.