Raising children is without question a challenging phase in every parent’s life. Parenting requires a lot of patience, understanding, and strength and comes with vast parental responsibility, but it’s well worth it.
The relationship between parents and kids is crucial for leading a happy and healthy life. The bond shared by parents and the kids is special and unique.
If you want to know why a positive relationship between parent and kid is essential and how you can improve your relationship with your kids, this article will help you out.
Importance of Positive Relationships Between Parents and Kid:
Childhood is the most sensitive phase in every kid’s life. So undoubtedly, sharing a good relationship with your kid can positively impact your child’s mentality and overall growth to adulthood. Here is some importance listed below.
1. Life-long bonding
A positive parents-kid relationship is vital for a successful beginning. The bond that you share with your kids in their childhood determines the bond you and your kids will share in the future.
2. Kids feel free to express their emotions
Kids feel free to share their emotions without struggling much. They can be more open up about their choices. Kids of strict parents often tend to be more quiet, low, and afraid to express their emotions which may be a severe issue.
3. Help to boost up your kid’s confidence.
Parents-kid interaction plays a significant role in building up the kid’s confidence, so maintaining a good relationship with your kid and having a conversation is a must. Having a good chat with kids will help them to be more confident about their choices, personality, and a decision that they make in the future.
4. Lay the foundation for your child developmentÂ
The bond that kids share with their parents can significantly influence their development, either mentally or socially. The nature of a kid, the way he/she sees the world, his/her perspectives towards the world all depend on how he/she has been brought up, what kind of relation do he/she share with his/her parents.
But none of the things are perfect in the world so as a family, and if you feel your relationship with your kids is not as good as you wanted it to be and want to know the ways to improve it, then here are some tips you can follow to improve your relationship with your kid.
12 Ways to Improve a Parent-Kid Relationship:
1. Express your affection to your child
Human beings seek love and affection at every phase of life. Everybody enjoys being loved especially, kids. So, express your love and devotion to your child as much as you can. But, don’t be greedy in expressing your love for them. Showing affection doesn’t require a lot of effort.
- Tell your kid you love them unconditionally,
- Show your appreciation by hugging them,
- Making them feel special, kissing them,Â
- Greeting them with a smile.Â
Your kids tend to be continuously seeking your love. By doing this, not only does your relationship with your kids improve, but it also plays a significant role in your kid’s psychological development.
2. Separate your personal and professional life
Don’t mix your personal and professional life. Spending time with your kids while you are with them without any distractions can positively impact your relationship with your kids.
On the other hand, don’t ruin your relationship with your kids because of your professional life. As working parents, it becomes more challenging to make a good connection with your kids than other non-working parents.
Spending less time with your kids can damage your relationship with them. Working parents need to be aware of the gap that may grow between them and their kids. So, it becomes your responsibility as parents to make time for them while kids are around with you, talk to them, spend quality time with them being tension-free, so the gap doesn’t widen as they grow up.
3. Don’t compare your kids with other’s kids
Every kid is born with a unique specialty in them. They are unique to each other. Comparing your kids with other kids can affect your kids’ psychology and your relationship with them. Kids may feel they are not loved, less valued, and good for nothing.
As a result, they become less confident, introverted and would feel a burden for their parents. So, parents need to be more conscious about their words. They should make their kid feel special.
Parents need to encourage their kids instead of scolding or comparing them with others. Parents play a crucial role in developing their confidence. So as a parent, encourage your child, motivate them, make them make mistakes, help them with their work, guide them and make them feel no matter what, they always have your back.
4. Say no to strict parenting
Strict parenting is one of the primary reasons for not having a positive and healthy relationship with your kids. For example, kids are often afraid of sharing their talks. Parents tend to be strict so that their children can be more disciplined, but they forget about the consequences it may create on kids.
Parents who think being strict with their kids from childhood make their kids well-behaved and disciplined in the future may often give birth to a timid personality. Harsh parenting, to some extent, is fine, but not all the time. Parents need to understand that there is a thin line between strict parenting and toxic parenting.
The more rigid you are with your kids, the more you are ruining your relationship with them. They become uncomfortable with you sharing their emotions.
Kids think that their parents would scold them if they utter some words in front of them. To make your child disciplined doesn’t mean you need to be strict with them. You can teach them good deeds by being friendly to them. So don’t be harsh on them if things can be solved with a good talk.
5. Create memories together
It becomes challenging for working parents to spend quality time with their kids. Their jobs always occupy them. Some parents need to go out of the city for their jobs, leave their kids at their grandparent’s house, or hire a babysitter for them. But parents shouldn’t forget that time is irreplaceable.
Once childhood has gone, it won’t come back again. So it becomes your responsibility as parents to balance your work life and give your kids valuable time not to harm your relationship with your kids.
- Go for a short trip with your kids whenever you are free,
- explore new things, new places together,
- surprise them with their favorite toys,
- celebrate their special day (such as a birthday gift) with great enthusiasm.
Every little thing you do for your kids not only makes your kids happy and joyful but also helps you to create a solid and positive relationship with your kids.
6. Appreciate them
If you appreciate someone, then you are motivating them in some ways. Every person in the world likes to be appreciated for their work no matter how younger or older they are. Appreciation works like a gem for building up self-confidence especially, for kids.
Kids feel thrilled when parents appreciate them and acknowledge their work. Kids think that parents are paying attention to them and enjoying the things they have been doing. Unfortunately, some parents try to hide their emotions (happiness) to themselves, thinking if they overreact in front of their child, their confidence will turn out to be overconfident, which harms their kids in the future.
But kids may not understand it and often think that they are not worth it at all. So, try to be more expressive and appreciate them with some praise words; if not, hug them or pat them back as appreciation. This helps you to grow your relationship with your kids more strongly.
7. Be a friend to them
Sometimes, Parents need to switch their roles as friends and create a friendly atmosphere between them and their kids. Changing the position from parents to their friends is not as difficult as it seems to be. You can simply approach them to play games with you and share their toys with you.
Kids are always searching for the person they can play with, read stories, books, or watch cartoons. By doing so, you can quickly come close to your kids, sharing an excellent positive bond with them.
8. Don’t enforce them
If you pressurize your kid to do things they are not interested in, don’t you think it is no less than bullying? Just because you wanted your child to do it doesn’t mean they are willing to be part of it. Forcing your kid against their will or showing your power to them ruins your relationship with your kid. It’s better not to force them.
In simple words, if your kids are not willing to wear clothes selected by you because they have their own choices, then let it be. Give them time, understand and respect their choices. It’s not about your kid’s cloth. It’s about how you, as a parent, can be supportive.
9. No harsh punishment
Most of the parents would give their kids punishment for destructive behaviors, which are wrong. However, giving punishment is not the solution for improving kids’ behavior. Instead of having improvements in their behaviors, it decreases their confidence and self-worth. As a result, kids become extra conscious before exploring new things.
They become afraid to try out new things. Kids think if they make any mistakes while trying out new things, their parents will punish them. So as a parent, it becomes your responsibility to guide them, make them make mistakes, and teach them lessons from their mistakes without punishing them.
10. Support your kids
For every kid, parents are their backbone. When something, either good or bad things take place, they always look up to their parents. Kids constantly seek their parent’s support. So as a parent, it becomes your responsibility to motivate them, support them, encourage them and praise your kids for their achievements, whether small or big.
If they fail or can’t achieve the things they are trying for, you need to comfort them by saying it’s okay and making. In that case, Suppose they feel that they always have your back and are always there for them no matter what happens.
11. Explore things together
Getting involved in your child’s hobby, showing interest in their work, participating, exploring, and learning new things together can be a game-changer in your relationship with your kids.
Kids tend to be more curious and ask a lot of questions. Some studies show that a four-year-old kid asks nearly 200-300 questions per day. So, being a parent, try to remove their thirst for knowledge without being irritated. It helps you to create a positive and strong bond with your kids.
12. Create rituals of dining together
Working parents spend most of the time in the office so it becomes essential for them to dine together as it is the only time they can spend together in a whole day. Eating together can benefit in various ways. It helps the parent get connected well with their kids, know about their kid’s likes and dislikes, and also helps your kids to develop communication skills and dining etiquette at a significantly earlier age.
Final thoughts
For every couple, parenthood is the most challenging phase where they need to be more conscious, thoughtful, and be more responsible about their words and actions towards their kids. The behavior of parents influences the kid in many ways. Parenting is one of the factors to determine a kid’s success in the future.
Suppose you spare some time from your busy schedule for your kids, try to be part of their talks, spend quality time together, play together, motivate them, express your love for them. In that case, nothing can break the bond between you and your kids, ultimately living a happy and healthy life.Â
