What is a relationship? A feeling of belonging, sharing, and protection. A commitment that doesn’t change. An obligation that has no boundaries. There is no definition to what exactly a relationship is. A healthy relationship with a child will ensure they have a great upbringing and aid their well-being. Hence, we will look at some points to maintain healthy relationships with children.
- To maintain good relationships, there are different parenting techniques which can help with healthy relationships with children. One of which is considered very important as it deals with different stages of a child’s development. Children learn every single day. Every time a child crosses a milestone, a parent must appreciate and make it vocal by applauding or saying something nice. As an adult, you know everything or at least most of it, but for a child, everything every day is new, so something that does not amuse you could be a level of acceleration for a child. As parents and guardians, acknowledging this is nothing but a challenge.
- To maintain good relationships, it is important to celebrate everything a child achieves. Be it learning to move or speak, crawling, walking, playing, all of it calls for a celebration in words. Telling your child how proud you are just because they learnt something new will boost their confidence. This will only help a child try to achieve more to get noticed and appreciated. Evaluating your child’s development is important, so paying attention to their behavior and speech, or emotions and thoughts, will let you know how well your child’s development is.
- Another great technique used to maintain healthy relationships with children is converting mistakes into learning. We learn with mistakes and so do children. Kids learn new things each day which will cause mistakes. However, raising your voice and being harsh will not help all the time. So turning their mistakes into learning is a good way to tell them that what they did was not accurate but if they try it differently, they can do it better.
- Setting boundaries is yet another important technique to maintain healthy relationships with children. Simple ways to set healthy boundaries include being clear about what you want to say and what you want them to understand. If you try to beat around a topic, your child will lose interest and they could easily be distracted. Getting back their attention is a topic for another day, but ensuring your thoughts are relayed clearly with simple and affirmative words is important.
- To ensure your children do as they were advised, and they don’t go back to old practices that you have asked them to refrain from, it is important to follow up. Firstly, giving children instructions as per their age will make it easier for a child to follow. You should be around and pay attention to children. Maintaining a good relationship with children requires parents and guardians to always make sure that children know that you are here, this also gives them the sense of being watched and protected at the same time.
- A healthy lifestyle is another good practice that will help maintain good relationships with children. As children go through physical changes, they tend to be at the edge of everything emotionally. So, to help them curb this, one must ensure children have a good social connection. This will help them meet people and children of their age and share whatever they are going through with someone that understands them at their level.
As parents and guardians, we must ensure our children get enough sleep. Children must not be over burdened with activities. Having too much to achieve can lead children to get anxious and affect their mental health, thus damaging the healthy relationships with children.
- Having a healthy lifestyle also includes children getting the required nutrients in their daily diet. Good sleep and activity alone will not help. Children need the right kind of food to ensure they remain energetic. The tasks entrusted to kids and the goals they have to achieve demand great nutrition, and hence a good meal will help strengthen their body and mind.
- A parent is a child’s first teacher. This is where children learn healthy lifestyles and healthy relationships. Children are always led by examples of their elders. Children are very curious and often tend to watch their elders. That is why we must be very careful of the words we use, the habits we have, our actions, as they are constantly watched. That is exactly why we must be on our best behavior around children.
Often when children are asked who they would want to be like when they grow up, their answers are often “like mom or dad.” Very rarely it would be a character from their favorite show. That is why it is important to a healthy environment around children, which will help you have healthy relationships too.
- Very often, as parents and guardians, we fail to listen to our children and pay attention to them and their needs. With our busy schedules, we try to do our best, to try and be a part of our child’s development. However, many times we fail to pay attention to small details, such as sudden change in behavior, eating patterns, mood swings and many more. These are alarming signs in a child. It shows that the child is not in healthy relationships and needs attention.
- Healthy relationships don’t need perfection; effort is enough. Putting in the effort to show our children love and understanding, and building trust in healthy relationships is very important. Making children comfortable so they can easily speak their minds is a way of building trust. Letting children know that you will be there for them, is also going to help you build that trust with your child. Teaching them to respect by giving respect is going to help you maintain healthy relationships.
EuroSchool ensures that we abide by these fantastic methods to build and develop our students’ future. We want each child to be confident in who they become and lead a very successful life. We encourage every parent and guardian to use these techniques and help build healthy relationships.
