The most important relationship of a child is with their parents. The relationship also impacts a child’s physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being. It determines the child’s future relationships, behavior, personality, and other life choices.
Parents often think what they are doing is the best for the child. But, that may not be the case necessarily. What your child needs and what you provide can be two completely different things. Your actions may not be healthy from the child’s perspective. This often leads to the degradation of the parent-child relationship. Your child may distance themselves from you, become fearful, or even hate you. As a parent, you won’t want that.
But, you can always work on improving your parent-child relationship. There are easy techniques and activities you can undertake that can help improve your relationship.
If you are one of those parents looking to work on improving your parent-child relationship, you have come to the right place. Read on to know eight simple techniques that will help strengthen and improve your bond with your child.
1. Have Clear, Positive Communication
One of the biggest reasons a parent-child relationship fails is the lack of clear communication. Parents unknowingly fail to express their views to their children clearly. Even if the communication is clear, it is done negatively. This affects the child badly. It can lead to the child resenting their parents.
To improve their relationships, parents can practice clear, positive communication techniques. This helps put your point across clearly and doesn’t negatively affect your child.
For example, instead of saying, “If you don’t study, you’ll end up with a low-paying job,” try saying, “Study to the best of your abilities” or “Study to have a bright, prosperous career.”
2. Spend Quality One-On-One Time
Kids want the love and attention of their parents more than anything else in the world. Unfortunately, we don’t get enough time to spend with our kids in today’s busy lifestyle. This heavily impacts the children emotionally and weakens the relationship bond.
Spending quality one-on-one time with your children can work wonders in improving your relationship. You don’t need to do anything special for your child. Just be with them as long as you can.
You can have simple conversations about various topics like how their day was or life in general. You can also carry out simple activities. For instance, you can watch a movie (their favorite ones) together, go on a night walk, or visit the local park.
Similarly, you can also have a story-reading session together. You can read them their favorite stories or stories with morals and values. We recommend using an AI-based reading app for children for your next story reading session. The app not only helps discover and read new stories but also helps improve your kid’s vocabulary.
The app has a voice identification and word recognition feature. This ensures the child reads correctly. Most importantly, you can have a happy, engaging, bonding story-telling session with your child.
3. Listen to Them
Most parents have a “We know it all” attitude. They hardly listen to what their children are saying. This leads to the kids becoming hesitant to share their thoughts and views with their parents.
While we can agree that we know things better than our kids. But, we also don’t know everything.
As a parent, make it a habit to listen to your kids. Hear their point of view, opinions, and suggestions. This can include simple conversation topics like choosing the movie to watch or deciding the dinner. Similarly, you can listen to things that are bothering them or any feelings they want to share with you.
Acknowledge your child’s emotions and feelings. Show them that you understand them. When you actively listen, you strengthen the bond with your child. They feel respected, too, as their voices are heard and valued.
4. Turn Off Distractions
As mentioned earlier, you need to spend quality time with your children. But, in today’s technological world, everyone is busy in their own world, even if sitting together.
We are talking about mobile phones, computers, laptops, TVs, and other electronic devices. As per a study, an average US adult spends about three hours and forty-three minutes on their smartphones daily. The ‘human connect’ is lost when we are lost in these devices.
Thus, whenever you spend time with your kids, make sure it is distraction-free. Turn off the TV. Similarly, keep your phones aside and preferably on silent mode. These choices can make a big difference.
Remember, your child needs to be your priority when you spend time with them. Even if it is for ten minutes. Your phone, emails, and sitcoms can wait.
5. Give Equal Treatment to All Kids
Most often, parents fail to treat multiple kids equally. Many studies have shown that parents, in fact, have a favorite and least favorite child. Even children are aware that parents differentiate. This can take a psychological toll on parents as well as kids. This, in turn, hampers the parent-child relationship for the less-favorite child.
As a parent, you should make an effort to eliminate the bias. Treat all your kids equally. Make sure that no child feels neglected, unwanted, or alone. Have equal participation from all kids in your family activities.
Similarly, spend equal individual time with all your children. Provide them with the same love, care, and comfort. This lets your children feel special, valued, and, most importantly, equal.
It’s important to celebrate each child individually.
Parting Thoughts
We hope that the tips and techniques mentioned above will help fix relationship issues with your child. That being said, you should know that improving the parent-child relationship takes time and effort. It is not a one-off thing. You will need to continuously work for months or even years on your parent-child relationship to see results.
But, in the end, we can assure you that the efforts are worth it. You will see a positive change in your and your close ones’ lives. After all, there is no greater joy than having a healthy, loving, caring family with a strong unbreakable bond.
