Connection
With very few exceptions, it’s what we crave from birth to death. It’s why we seek meaningful relationships and why we miss them so deeply when we no longer have them.
There are many reasons why people struggle to form meaningful connections. The depersonalization of the world at large has made it increasingly difficult. As technology has grown, it has become harder to build the relationships that so desperately need face-to-face interaction. In the face of this adversity, it has become more important than ever to equip our children with the skills they need to find those connections.
The relationship between a parent and child develops the skills necessary for human connection. It is a child’s first place of learning, and what is modelled there sets the stage for all future relationships.
This is what I have found to be true:
Focus less on doing and more on being. Don’t over-program your child. It’s more important that they learn how to love than how to skate.
Teach your children the value of commitment by modelling it yourself. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don’t make promises if there is even the slightest chance you can’t keep them. Children are deeply hurt by broken promises. They learn not to expect them and, eventually, they learn not to keep them.
Connect. Don’t be an armchair parent. Get down there with them. Play, read, talk. Sometimes the most absent parents are right there in the room.
Act on your feelings. Telling your child you love them is never as powerful as showing them.
Hear your child, and let them truly understand that you have. Get inside their head. “Wow, I love that picture,” is not as impactful as, “It looks like you really took your time drawing that house. I love that you chose blue for the roof. Wow, I love that picture.”
Let them fall. Let them fail. They can learn the hard way or the easy way—either way, they will learn. That is a certainty. Better that they learn how to fall and fail in a loving home than in a big, mostly uncaring world.
Work hard to recognize the divide between your expectations of them and who they choose to be. Narrow that gap as much as possible.
Make home a safe place to land. They will need it.
