7 essential tips to improve parent-child relationship

The parent-child relationship needs constant efforts to maintain its strength and warmth like other relationships. Some tools help you to improve parent-child relationship.

In parenting, we focus on our child’s upbringing and growth. Somehow it sounds like we dominate our children but when you start to connect with them and focus on your relationship you can see the changes in your children.

We all are unique and so are our children and our parenting style too. There is no wrong or right parenting style. It is how we are raised and nurtured in our childhood is all upon us.

When we become parents our responsibility has grown. We must upgrade as humans to nurture our children as the world changes every day. That’s why it is important to upgrade our parenting too.

Here is the list that helps you to improve parent-child relationship. Here is the reminder that your child is growing and over time their world is upgrading with lots of new relations and they gain a lot of knowledge. So, you should upgrade to tune in with children according to their age.

7 Essential Tips to Improve Parent-Child Relationship

Love them Unconditionally

Children’s basic emotional need is love, our unconditional love. The meaning of unconditional love is not to become permissive parents. It means that your love should be in your voice, actions, and behavior.

Your actions show that you always love them no matter who they are. For that, you dare to accept your child with all their abilities and flaws.

Sometimes parents show concern for this topic that the overdose of love may spoil their kids. But this love comes with boundaries.

Just imagine your kids want to play with fire, would you allow them? Of course not, you firmly say that don’t play with fire at all. If your kids want to firecrackers, first you give them instructions about what to do and what not to do.

When you say no to your children it doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Having boundaries is healthy for your children’s growth. Without boundaries, they never learn about right or wrong, and will never learn to follow boundaries.

Instead, they become indisciplined.

The love you give them is with all the boundaries and disciplines. Here is how you set all boundaries. How much effort you are putting into your relationship becomes important.

Remove the misconception of unconditional love of being always a ‘yes’ parent.

You can say no whenever you need to and still be a parent who gives their child unconditional love with acceptance of their individuality. You have to be cautious about your response when you set boundaries.

Active Listening

Active listening will help you to understand your child’s present situation, emotions, future goals, and career planning.

Generally, we ignore their talk when they are young, we think that there is nothing important in their chatter. We started ignoring them and eventually, they stopped sharing their experiences and emotions with us.

That creates a gap between parent and child’s relationship. This gap will always increase until we realize it. Sometimes the realization takes too long time which reflects in the relationship.

Do practice active listening from early childhood. Their chatter is not unimportant talk. It is their way of expression.

They share their experiences and amazing dreams with you. When you listen to them attentively they feel worthy and validated. When you listen to them attentively, they feel more confident as they develop their self-esteem through your validation.

Active listening makes them feel heard. They feel close to you as you are the person who listens to them carefully without being bored or judgmental.

Effective Communication

Communication becomes the second tool after you listen to your children carefully and attentively, especially when your child has gone through extreme emotions like happiness, sadness, anger, or being overwhelmed, etc.

The way you communicate with them becomes their inner voice. You are the closest person whom they trust and believe. They believe in you and your words, your words become their identity.

You are the person with whom they have confidence, and who will never hurt them. They count on you from their childhood.

These are the reason that when you answer them and start to communicate with them you have to be assertive and optimistic.

You can understand their feelings and what they are going through if you already have listened to them attentively. You know in what phase they are going and can analyze the condition.

Make your communication mindful when the situation seems difficult or sensitive. At that time your words create a deep impact in their unconscious mind.

Empathetic conversation

Your communication should be empathetic while having a conversation with them.

The empathetic conversation helps you in different stages of your parenting, as a parent we have to play differently in various conditions.

We Should change our perspective and conversation according to the different stages of a child’s development.

While dealing with a young child your empathy has a significant role. At a very young age when you show empathy to the child while dealing with their tantrums and other sensitive incidents, they gain trust in you and feel confident in themselves.

Tweens and teenagers mostly become defensive while talking about difficult conversations. They don’t convey your message assertively and don’t feel connected. They feel that you are not understanding them as they don’t feel empathy in your words.

So, when you are dealing with them make sure to have empathy in your conversation. Listen to them carefully, and after that start to show your perspective with all understanding.

Sometimes our role is to play the role of guide, sit in the backseat, and let them drive, especially when children are entering a young adult

Stay connected with them and ask them open-ended questions instead of long and confusing questions. If you want to share your thoughts keep it minimal. Because when you stretch your sentences your children seem it as a lecture.

They start to keep their distance from you as they don’t find it valued and worthy.

If you think that the conversation is going in the wrong direction, leave that topic at that moment. Think of the other options to convey your core message to your teen child.

Quality time

Your time is the best gift for your children. When you spend time with your child and doing things together you start to build a strong bridge of connection. It will improve parent-child relationship which you can sense in their behaviors.

There are multiple ways to spend quality time together even if you have a hectic day and have no time slot to enjoy with them.

Doing house chores together, asking for help in the kitchen, or eating meals together are the different options for you to spend time together.

When you do work as a team you have the opportunity to teach them self independency. They learn to do the basic work by themselves which helps them in their future life.

You can also plan a play date at weekends to spend time together. The playdate with your child also helps you to energize for next week. Here you can spend time with your child and also burn some calories while enjoying with them.

The bedtime routine is the best time to connect with your child and also improve parent-child relationship. You can tell stories to young children, sharing your funny moments at the end of the day if you have a tween or teenager. Or just spending time talking on different topics of their choice.

Praying together is also a good option to add to your bedtime routine.

You can add any custom when the entire family is together and joining the custom has also become a good habit to spend quality time together.

You can mark it as a family custom to increase the value of the family. Any kind of ritual has a positive impact on all the family members.

Respect Your Child

Respect plays a big role in improving the parent-child relationship. No matter how you are upset with them or how they misbehave with you. There should be respect between you and your children.

When you see your child sharing some different thoughts than you, still you have to show the same respect for their thoughts.

Your child’s perspective and thoughts are part of their personality and that’s why it is worthy to be respected.

When you see your child misbehaving with you or using mean words to you, don’t take it personally. Those words show how they feel at that moment, not what you are. At those difficult moments keep yourself calm and take a few deep breaths then respond instead of reacting.

How you respond makes a huge difference in your relationship. When you teach your child the proper way of expressing anger and discomfort they start to implement it in their behavior.

They learn that there are many other ways to show discomfort without any disrespectful behavior. You can set boundaries with respect. When you show respect to them and their emotions they will learn to respect you more. You will receive 10 times more than what you have given to them.

Prioritize your Relationship

We live in a world of distraction where we forget to live in the real world with real relations.

We compromise our relationships, especially with children. It became essential to prioritize our relationship with children and try to improve parent-child relationship.

Get out of our screens, remove the distractions from our lives, and focus on our relationship with our children. There is no such a wonderful relationship in this world.

Conclusion

Our relationship with our children plays an important role in our lives. They are our descendants and we have an unbroken bond with them. When we face conflicts in this relationship we feel empty from the inside. It becomes unbearable for parents to have emotional distance from their children.

We love them a lot but somehow due to improper communication and some flaws the relationship lost its beauty. That is the reason to improve parent-child relationship with them. It is fuel for both parents and children to grow in life as a person. With the help of each other, we make a family that provides all the emotional needs of everyone.