How to create close bonds with your children
Many parents despair of ever creating close bonds with their children. So much time is spent just doing everyday things that it seems that parents and children never get to know each other. Think about how you and your family spend your day. How much time do you spend in the car driving your kids to their various activities? How much time, after school, do your kids spend involved in activities such as sports, art classes, dance classes, and more, with people other than family members? How many times in the past week have you all sat down together for dinner as a family? How much time have you spent together as a family-other than in the car, running from destination to destination?
It's getting easier and easier for families and family members to become more and more distant. Parents have to spend a lot of time at work just to make ends meet in today's suffering economy. Kids are involved in more and more extracurricular activities, and spend less and less time with their families. Hardly any families spend time together eating dinner as a whole family any more. Add in the stress experienced by parents and kids and they strive to succeed at both work and at school, and you have a family that is really not a whole lot more than a bunch of strangers who happen to live in the same house, instead of a family that is made up of friends.
While this particular picture does make the situation sound awfully bleak, you don't have to despair and give up hope. It is possible to build, to strengthen, and to maintain bonds of friendship within your family. However, in order to build bonds of friendship within your family, you are going to have to be willing to give to your family that most precious of commodities today: your time.
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The best way, hands down, for your to create close bonds with your children is for family members to spend time together. Not just any time together, however. Time spent in a car together running from lesson to lesson to sport to grocery store is usually not time that is spent particularly constructively when it comes to building and strengthening friendships within your family. It's a great idea to create time set apart for families to spend time together doing something that is fun and enjoyable. Ask your kids to be willing to spend time as a family on the weekends, doing something that you will all enjoy. If you must, move your family activities to every other weekend. In order to help your kids feel excited about spending time together as a family of friends, let your kids take turns planning your special family activities.
You can even stay home and just hang out with each other. Don't let time spent together disintegrate into internecine fighting, however. Cook meals together. If you notice that some of your children share similar interests, encourage them to play together. Find activities that everyone in your family enjoys, because participating in those activities will create bonds and community that you just can't create any other way.
Children can easily become jealous and angry at their siblings when they feel like other siblings receive more attention than they do. Encourage your kids to spent time playing together as friends, and also spend time with your kids one on one. They will see this as a special time when they get to do what they want with the person they admire the most and want to please the most. Even teenagers, deep down, want to spend time with their parents and want to feel that they are special and loved. Do things with your individual children that they will enjoy. Don't take your son to a football game just because you think he should like football-ask him what he would really like to do.
In order to build strong bonds of friendship within your family, you need to create a family where the members feel safe and they feel accepted. It's great and important to joke around-but don't let it be at the expense of individual family members. Teach your kids to respect each other and to be kind. But remember that they will learn respect and understanding for others by watching you show that respect-so practice it yourself.
