7 Ways to Improve Your Relationships With Your Children Now

Much of my recent work has been supporting families who are reunifying after involvement with the child welfare system. As you may imagine, child placement can be a stressful and, often, traumatic experience.

Children experience stress and trauma from parental separation, being removed from familiar environments, and from the underlying stressors that led to child welfare involvement in the first place. Children may feel powerless, anxious, depressed, and angry.

Parents experience these feelings as well. Navigating a system that has the authority to separate parents from their children is, at the very least stressful. I am in awe of the parents who are able to do so while sometimes also addressing addiction, lack of resources, and mental health challenges.

During reunification, it is not uncommon for children to display new and concerning behaviors. These behaviors usually result from the disruption in the parent-child relationship. And, while it's tempting to just focus on a child's behavior, it's more important to repair and strengthen the relationship.

Foster placement is not the only thing that disrupts parent-child relationships. Everyday life challenges, children's developmental changes, workplace stressors, and personality differences can also strain parent-child relationships.

All parents and caregivers can benefit from learning ways to repair and strengthen their relationships with their children.

7 Ways to Improve Relationships with Your Children

Would you like to be closer to your children? Would you like to have less conflict and better communication? Has your family experienced a tough time recently? Here are seven tips for building, repairing, and strengthening relationships with your children.

Spend Quality Time Together

Spending quality time with your child is important for relationship building. Quality time is an uninterrupted time during which your child has your undivided attention. Though the quality time may be brief; a few seconds to several minutes, it can show children that they are valued. Feeling valued helps children develop a positive sense of identity and self-confidence.

Show Affection

Affection is a feeling of fondness, liking, or love. Affection may be shown to children through:

hugging
sitting close
holding a baby
saying "I love you" or other kind words
smiling

Studies show children who are shown a lot of affection are:

more resilient
less depressed as adults
more compassionate
less stressed

Children may express and receive love differently than their parents. Consider learning your children's primary love languages so you can show affection in a way that's comfortable to them.

Listen to Your Child

Parents may be good at talking to a child. Or talking at a child. And demanding that the child listen. But how often are parents listening to their children? Truly, actively listening.

Active listening involves giving full attention to the person speaking and concentrating on what's being said. Actively listening to your child means:

being patient and allowing them to speak at their own pace
not interrupting
not judging or correcting
showing that you're listening (for example, putting down your phone; smiling; sitting close; giving eye contact if comfortable)
restating or paraphrasing what was said
asking follow-up questions

Choose Activities that Interest Your Child

Children are not mini-mes. They are young people with their own desires, likes, and dislikes. And they want to be valued as such. Show your children they matter by choosing activities that they are interested in. Yes, that means that you will probably have to learn more than you care to know about the latest video game or toy. Yes, that means that you will read that book 50'leven times at bedtime. It also means your child will feel more connected to you.

Admit When You're Wrong

Making mistakes is a given. In life and in parenting. The response to making mistakes can either bring families closer through vulnerability and trust or create distance through hurt feelings and resentment. Did you lose your cool and yell at your children? Admit you were wrong and apologize. Did you accidentally knock down their block tower? Say you're sorry and begin rebuilding together.

Learn Self-Regulation

Being in a relationship with people, even young people like your children can have ups and downs. Sometimes people do not see eye to eye. Sometimes unmet basic needs such as hunger or fatigue interfere with our ability to relate to one another. Emotions may run high and misunderstandings can occur. This is true for both parents and children.

When repairing relationships with children, it's important for parents to regulate themselves. Self-regulation involves becoming aware of your bodily sensations, emotions, and thoughts so you can choose to behave in a more controlled manner. Parental self-regulation can look like this:

taking deep breaths to calm down when your teen slams a door
noticing you're frustrated while helping your child with homework and deciding to take a break
addressing your hunger or thirst before addressing the mess your toddler made

Build Social Support

Creating safe and engaging spaces for children to grow and develop is a big task. Families are not supposed to do this in isolation. Parents need support systems to share their joys and struggles with. Social support can help parents learn new skills and provide much-needed respite. The whole family benefits when parents feel supported.

Parenting does not require perfection. When parent-child relationships are strained, there are ways to rebuild trust and connection. What do you do to strengthen your relationships with your children? Sign up to receive a PDF of the 7 Ways to Improve Your Relationships With Your Children.

Categories: : Family Relationships