Gameplan for Positive Parenting Your Teen

Positive parenting a teenager?  A terrific teen who's responsible, considerate, shows good judgment, at least most of the time?  Yes, it is possible! Here's your game plan, with 12 essential Tips.

You may not feel like you have much influence on your child these days, but teens’ behavior is highly correlated with the strength of their bonds with their parents. 

Good relationships between teenagers and their parents, as rated by both, are positively correlated with school success and general happiness as rated by the teen and those around her.  

By contrast, weak or conflictual parent/teen relationships are correlated with early sexual activity, experimentation with drugs and alcohol, the teen's involvement in violence (as either perpetrator or victim), and suicide.

How do you parent this blossoming person who sometimes seems to be becoming a stranger?  12 Essential Tips:

1. Remember you're a parent, AND a friend.  Teens crave closeness to their parents, so they do want the relationship to be a form of friendship.  But they also need to feel like they have some independence, so sometimes you may feel a bit shut out.  If you can navigate your closeness in an accepting way that doesn't take advantage of your role as parent to tell your child what to do, he's more likely to open up and share with you.

Does a close friendship erode your teen's respect for you?  No.  Don't you respect your friends, and treasure those who are really there for you emotionally?  If you offer your teen respect, consideration, and authenticity, that's what you'll receive in return.  

And as close as you want to be to your teen, sometimes you will have to pull rank and say No.  If you're doing it often, that's a red flag that something is wrong.  But sometimes your teen will be looking to you to set limits they can't set for themselves.  Sometimes you'll need to stick by your values and say no, whether that's to an unsupervised party or a very late bedtime.  Sometimes your teen will be able to use your guidance to come up with a win-win solution that answers your concerns.  

2. Establish dependable together time. Be sure to check in every single day. A few minutes of conversation while you're cleaning up after dinner or right before bedtime can keep you tuned in and establish open communication.  Even teens who seem to have forgotten who their parents are the other 23 hours a day often respond well to a goodnight hug and check-in chat once they're lounging in bed.  In addition to these short daily check-ins, establish a regular weekly routine for doing something special with your teen, even if it's just going out for ice cream or a walk together.

3. Parent actively and appropriately.  Don’t invite rebellion by refusing to acknowledge that your son or daughter is growing up and needs more freedom.  But don’t be afraid to ask where your kids are going, who they’ll be with and what they’ll be doing. Get to know your kids’ friends and their parents so you’re familiar with their activities.

4. Try to be there after school.  The biggest danger zone for drug use and sex isn't Saturday night; it's between 3 and 6 PM on weekdays. Arrange flex time at work if you can. If your child will be with friends, make sure there’s adult supervision, not just an older sibling.

5. Keep your standards high.  Your teen wants to be his or her best self.  Our job as parents is to support our teens in doing that.   But don't expect your child to achieve goals you decide for her; she needs to begin charting her own goals now, with the support of a parent who adores her just as  she is and believes that she can do anything she aims to.  Support your teen's passions and explorations as she finds her unique voice. 

6. Make it a high priority to eat meals together as often as you can. Meals are a great opportunity to talk about the days' events, to unwind, reinforce and bond. They're also your best opportunity to keep in touch with your teen's life and challenges, and to spot brewing problems.  Finally, an important factor in kids' happiness and overall success is whether they feel they get time to "just hang out and talk" with parents every day.  

7.  Keep the lines of communication humming.  If you don't know what's going on, you lose all hope of influencing the outcome. 

8. Encourage good self-care, such as the nine and half hours of sleep every teen needs, and a good diet.  Coffee is a bad idea for early teens because it interferes with normal sleep patterns.  Too much screen time, especially in the hour before bedtime, reduces melatonin production and makes it harder for kids to fall asleep at night.

9. Continue family meetings. Held regularly at a mutually agreed upon time, family meetings provide a forum for discussing triumphs, grievances, sibling disagreements, schedules, any topic of concern to a family member. Ground rules help. Everyone gets a chance to talk; one person talks at a time without interruption; everyone listens, and only positive, constructive feedback is allowed. To get resistant teens to join in, combine the get-together with incentives such as post-meeting pizza or ice cream, or assign them important roles such as recording secretary or rule enforcer. 

10. Keep kids safe and connected to the family by keeping computers in your common space. It can be hard for parents to track what teens do on line because they know more about the computer than we do.  But research shows that he'll be less tempted to spend time doing things you'd disapprove of if the computer is in a common space, where you can walk by and glance at what he's doing. Kids live online these days, but he can still stay connected to his family if online is in the heart of your home.

11. Don't push your teen into independence before he's ready.   Every teen has his own timetable for blossoming into an independent person. Real independence includes close relationships with others, and it never needs to include rebelliousness.  It is NOT healthy for your child to feel that you're pushing him into independence -- that only leads to him becoming overly dependent on the peer group. If he isn't ready to go to sleep away camp for a month, then he isn't ready.  Sooner or later, he will be.  Respect his timetable. 

12.Make agreements and teach your child to make repairs. If you've raised your child without punishment, he will almost certainly be close to you. Because he doesn't want to damage the trust between you, he won't lie to you, and he won't usually infringe on your limits. If he does, ask him how he can make repairs, including repairing your trust.

13. What if you've raised your child with punishment, and now she's breaking your rules and lying to you? It's never too late to  help her learn to take responsibility, but to start, she has to value her relationship with you. That means you need to stop punishing, and start listening and connecting. You also need to insist that she find ways to make repairs. That's a tricky dance, because punishment will make things worse, so she has to choose the repair, -- and yet you are still insisting that she do so. No, it's not a punishment -- it's a way for her to make things better when she messes up, which is what all adults learn to do. But she'll only understand it this way if she wants to please you, so if you need to go to counseling together to create that relationship, don't hesitate.

14. Stay connected even as she moves into the world. If we've accepted our child's dependency needs AND affirmed her development into her own separate person, she'll stay fiercely connected to us even as her focus shifts to peers, high school and the passions that make her soul sing.

It's appropriate for teens to want to spend more time with their peers than their parents as they get older, but kids who are well grounded in their families will respond well to parents' efforts to stay connected.  And parents who have bonded adequately with their children at each earlier stage will feel invested enough in their teens to stay connected, even if a lot of effort is required. 

It’s critical, during the teen years, for parents to remain their children’s emotional and moral compass.  Kids will begin to experiment with intimate relationships outside the family, but to do that successfully, they still rely on those intimate relationships at home remaining solid.  That means that a 14 year old who focuses mostly outwards is probably looking for something he wasn’t getting at home.

We need to invite our children to rely on us emotionally until they’re emotionally ready to depend on themselves.  Too often, in our culture, we let teenagers transfer their dependency outside the family, with disastrous results. Teens often give up a great deal of themselves in pursuit of the closeness they crave, only to crash against the hard reality that other teens aren’t developmentally able to offer them what they need.  

You may not be at the top of your teen's list nowadays, but work like the dickens to stay close, and don't take it for granted that your child will now push you away. That’s a sign of a damaged relationship. Don't give up. It’s never too late in your relationship with your child to do repair work and move closer.http://www.ahaparenting.com/Default.aspx?PageID=6164152&A=SearchResult&SearchID=7749237&ObjectID=6164152&ObjectType=1

What's Connection Parenting? Q and A

What's Connection Parenting?  Prioritizing your relationship with your child, because you know that's the foundation for emotional well-being.

 As our infants grow into toddlers and do less nuzzling and more NO-ing, how do we maintain a strong connection while setting the necessary limits?  Can we keep the relationship close as our child starts daycare or preschool and we teach her to problem-solve and navigate her own path?  As our kids move into the school years and out into the world, how do we stay connected so we can enforce high expectations?  And as our kids evolve into teenagers -- when we get fired as the boss -- how can we make sure we have the necessary trust and intimacy with them so that we get rehired as consultants?

Pam Leo, the originator of the term, says it best:

"The model of parenting most of us grew up with was authoritarian parenting, which is based on fear. Some of us may have grown up with permissive parenting, which is also based on fear. Authoritarian parenting is based on the child's fear of losing the parent's love. Permissive parenting is based on the parent's fear of losing the child's love. Connection parenting is based on love instead of fear."  --Pam Leo, Connection Parenting

Children grow up fast. It may not seem that way when your 11 month old cries all night, or your 3 year old is screaming on the floor next to the candy display. But age 9, with its delightful reasonableness poised on the brink of preteen sophistication, arrives in what seems like the blink of an eye. As your child blows out those 9 candles, you’re halfway to 18.  The age of majority, when he’s legally considered enough of an adult to marry, vote, and die for his country.  18 – and usually earlier – is when you’re officially fired as a parent, and, if you’ve done a good enough job, re-hired as a consultant.

I dread dropping my children off at college.  I know too many women who sobbed the whole way home, wondering how they missed so much of the last eighteen years.  Their kids dash off happily, ready for their new lives.  It’s the mom who suddenly realizes that she isn’t.  I know I’ll be sobbing.  But I also know I won’t have missed much.  I know they’ll really be ready, inside, to flourish on their own.  And I trust that I’ll have built the kind of connection with my kids that will keep us close throughout their lives.

“All parents hope that’s what we’re doing, of course. How can we be sure?” 

At this point, there’s not much doubt.  Research teams have shown again and again what it is that builds a strong connection between parents and children. It starts early, with parents who respond to the infant’s needs, so that she develops a secure attachment to them.  This body of research is called Attachment Theory, and has given rise to a child-raising approach called Attachment Parenting.   

“Isn’t Attachment Parenting about moms never being apart from the baby?  I love him, but I need a break sometimes.”

Attachment Parenting has indeed become known for its recommendation that babies need a lot of holding by their parents, but of course no mother holds her baby every minute. That’s a caricature. And please notice I said “parents,” as in fathers as well as mothers. All parents need a break sometimes; that’s why nature set us up with two.

But the critical ingredient in Attachment Parenting is actually the attentiveness with which the baby’s adults respond to her, which gives her a secure attachment.  That’s the foundation of healthy emotional development. 

Attachment Parenting is only the beginning of the bond you build and nurture with your child.  The parenting philosophy that helps parents create a close lifetime connection with their kids is known as Connection Parenting, a coin termed by Parent Educator Pam Leo.

“But why does that need to be a parenting philosophy? Aren’t all parents connected to their kids?”

What’s different about Connection Parenting is that it’s about the relationship with your child, rather than a set of “skills’ to make you a better parent. You’re a fine parent the way you are, if you’re in touch with your natural parenting instincts.

“If that’s true, why do so many of us find parenting such a challenge?”

Because no amount of "parenting skills" can make up for the lack of a close parent-child relationship.  Kids accept our guidance because of who we are to them.  Without that relationship, it’s very hard to parent.  A close bond not only makes our kids want to please us, it gives us access to our natural parenting know-how.

It’s especially challenging to create a close relationship with our kids these days.  Human beings weren’t designed to handle the amount of stress our modern life loads on us, which makes it difficult to hear our instincts. Most of us try to parent in our spare time, around the demands of work, commuting and household responsibilities.  Finally, our culture devalues and erodes our relationship with our kids, and woos them away from us at too early an age.

“So not all parents are sufficiently connected to their kids?” 

Of course, every parent has a relationship with his or her child.  The question is what kind of relationship. We can think of relationships as the slow accretion of daily interactions. You don’t have to do anything special to build a relationship, per se.  The good -- and bad -- news is that every interaction creates the relationship. Grocery shopping, carpooling and bath time matter as much as that big talk you have when there’s a problem. He doesn’t want to share his toy, or go to bed, or do his homework? How you handle it is one brick in the foundation of your permanent relationship, as well as his ideas about all relationships.

It’s true that North Americans think of themselves as more “child-centered” than ever.  We take endless digital pictures of our babies that we post online, we plan elaborate birthday parties our two year olds find overwhelming, we let our four year olds run rampant in restaurants, we allow our daughters to dress like pop stars by age 10, we spend a fortune on wardrobes, Ipods, computers, TVs.  But these things aren’t what our kids need, and they often disconnect us from our kids, as evidenced by the 2/3 of kids who have TVs in their bedrooms. 

“I do spend time with my kids, driving them everywhere. But I have a demanding job and our life is so busy. Do I have to do something special?”

Close relationships are built, moment by moment, from shared experience that lets us touch each other deeply.  Nothing extraordinary may seem to be happening on the outside, but on the inside we’re connecting with the fullness of our deepest selves.  It’s a form of falling in love: most of it happens in our hearts.  Experiences like kissing scraped knees, laughing hysterically over nothing, discussing human nature at the dinner table, or wrestling with a challenging decision during a quiet stroll at twilight – that’s what builds intimacy.  But to have these kinds of deep moments with someone, we have to make our connection with that human being our priority.

“I love my kids. Of course I prioritize them. But I have other responsibilities that sometimes have to come first.”

Prioritizing the connection with our kids means we put them first.  Not that we don’t work outside the home – and, when we can, throw ourselves into those jobs whole-heartedly.  Not that we don’t have passionate, devoted, intimate marriages.  But prioritizing our kids means that we take very seriously the responsibility we’ve signed onto: That for this eighteen years of our life, this small person who we chose to have placed in our arms gets our full attention.  That we make decisions about the rest of our lives so our children get what they need.

“What do you mean by full attention?  That sounds so vague.”

Some people think of it as love.  But it isn’t enough that we tell our children we love them.  We need to put our love into action every day for them to feel it. Like a marriage or a friendship, your relationship with your child needs positive attention to thrive. Like your garden, your wardrobe, or your work, what you attend to flourishes. Maybe attention is best thought of as being completely present in the moment with another person.  Or bringing your full acceptance and appreciation to someone. And, of course, that kind of attentiveness takes time.  You can’t multi-task at it.

“So lets be precise here about how much time.  It sounds like you’re saying it’s fine to work outside the home if I make good decisions for my kids and give them my full attention when I’m home.”

We can’t come up with the answer for any given family by discussing this in the abstract.  But let’s start with what we know is true.  We know that for healthy development, babies need to form permanent attachments  with intimate others who respond to their needs.  By definition, any paid caregiver who is not a relative cannot offer a permanent relationship; you can count on it being disrupted sooner or later.

For an infant, more than a few hours a week of care by a non-intimate can be emotionally jarring.  They’re biologically programmed so that their stress hormones go through the roof when their "special people" vanish.  An older baby  -- starting around six months -- can handle somewhat more time away from her "attachment figures",  but still needs to spend the majority of her awake time relating to a permanent intimate other.

“Does this need to be the mother?”

Only a sexist would say yes to that.  And why should it be the mom rather than the dad, who loves his baby just as deeply?  In fact, it could be a grandmother or aunt.  But does this need to be someone who is a loving, permanent presence, who is able to form a deep intimate relationship with the baby? Absolutely.  Otherwise, the baby is building a relationship with someone who is going to disappear on her. Or, worse yet, spending her days with someone who can't adequately bond with her.

“So when is it developmentally appropriate for kids to be in daycare?”
Let’s fast forward to what we know about two year olds.  If they spend most of their days with someone who is fully present and quietly attentive to their needs, someone with whom they have a strong permanent bond, they tantrum less.  They have fewer nightmares.  They have a lower amount of stress hormones circulating in their bloodstreams. They are altogether more cooperative, because their needs for autonomy are being met in the context of appropriate loving limits in an intimate relationship.

“But can’t toddlers get these needs met in daycare, or by a caregiver?”  
Maybe in fantastic daycare, where the toddler has one special person who is “his,” so he gets the intimate relationship he needs.  And maybe with a terrific caregiver.  But again, by definition, those caregiver bonds will be disrupted sooner or later, and the younger the child, the greater the damage.  We’re so cavalier in our culture about relationships; we don’t acknowledge the loss for our children – and then we wonder why we all feel so disconnected in this society.  Of course, if your child doesn’t mourn the loss of a caregiver, then there wasn’t much of a relationship there, and your child shouldn’t have been left with that person to begin with.

The bottom line in non-parental care is the quality of the relationship that’s offered to the child.  It’s hard enough for a loving parent who resonates with the toddler to set appropriate loving limits that nurture autonomy. I think it’s a superhuman challenge for any paid caregiver.

Also, if we expect to be our kids' "attachment figures," they need us around for most of their waking hours.  So while being a Connected Parent doesn’t mean you won’t work outside the home, you will almost certainly make different decisions about work than you would if you didn’t have kids.

"What about parents who need to work?"

I strongly recommend Stanley Greenspan's book The Four-Thirds Solution: Solving the Childcare Crisis in America Today.  He suggests that each parent work 2/3 time and spend 1/3 time with the kids.  That means the child gets 1/3 time with mom, 1/3 time with dad, and only 1/3 time with some other caregiver or in daycare.  I personally think that's ideal. 

"Surely three year olds can be in daycare?"

By the time a child is three, they are absolutely ready for part time group care away from their family, and it is terrific for them in terms of peers, intellectual stimulation, learning social norms, and relating to other adults. Three can be a difficult age and it is often helpful to the parents, as well as the child, for the child to begin to have a life outside the home.  If there are younger siblings, it is particularly helpful for the three year old to have his own special "world.".  But the parents will have to pay special attention when they are with their child to staying positively connected. That's why fulltime care is still not desirable.

“You’re talking a lot about little ones.  What about Connection Parenting for older kids?”
I talk a lot about babies, because if you start with a close relationship, you’re less likely to lose it in the pressures of modern life as she grows up.  What happens is that your strong bond with your baby awakens your natural parenting instincts, which insist that you stay connected to your child, even as she gets older.

“Connection Parenting sounds very child-centered.”
 
Parenting takes enormous effort. But most of the time, the emotional rewards make it feel well worth it. If it didn't work that way, humans would never have survived to this generation.  And connection-oriented parents get something huge out of it, something other parents can’t count on. Parenting with a good relationship is like guiding that boulder downhill – you still have to pay attention and offer direction, and challenges certainly arise, but the momentum is with you.

A good parent-child relationship gets you through the hard times, and creates more frequent good times.  It helps you to listen to, learn from, and meet the unique needs of your growing child.  It makes it easier for you to influence your kid, so he’s more cooperative and discipline isn’t a challenge.

Of course, your child gets something even deeper.  A strong relationship with you helps him to love himself, which is the foundation of mental health and happiness; and to love others, which is the foundation of future fulfilling relationships. Kids whose emotional needs are met express the traits and values we all want in our kids: consideration and respect for others, self-confidence, integrity, self -discipline. And study after study shows that a close relationship with parents protects children from the excesses of the culture and the peer group.

Connection Parenting keeps your family connected even as the pressures of daily life impinge on your time together and your children grow into their own lives, with their own friends and interests.  And it insures that they’ll want to email you from college, or wherever their paths may lead.http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/connection/connection-parenting-Q-A

How to Be a Positive Role Model for Teens

Parent, confidant, rule-maker and positive role model are just a few of the hats you wear when you're raising a teen. Parents want their teens to be kind, thoughtful, successful, confident, honorable and responsible, and they can learn these behaviors in many ways, including through the power of positive role models. As a parent, you are one of the most important role models your teen has, which means you need to accentuate the positive.

Step 1

Make good choices. According to Robyn Silverman, speaker, teen development specialist and writer, every decision you make affects not only you, but your teen, too. If you want to be a good role model for your teen, remember that she is watching and waiting to emulate your behavior. For example, if you forgot to walk the dog, resulting in the dog urinating on the living room floor, you could lie to your teen by telling her you did walk the dog or you can tell her you forgot and accept responsibility for your mistake. The decision you make affects your ability to be a positive role model for your teen.

Step 2

Finish what you start. One way to be a positive role model to your teens is to commit yourself to whatever it is you start, according to Silverman. For example, if your teen sees you follow-through on your commitments despite them being far tougher than originally thought, he’s more likely to stick with his decisions.

Step 3

Go outside your comfort zone to have your teen see you as a well-rounded person, according to Silverman. In order to become a positive role model for your teen, she needs to see you live a multifaceted life. She shouldn’t simply see you in the house or in your office. Being a positive role model means showing your teen that she can be successful in life doing more than one thing and not being afraid to accept a challenge or an adventure. Let her see you conquer your fear of heights by taking the family zip-lining or your dream of learning to ballroom dance.

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/positive-role-model-teens-1477.html

Nurturing Intimacy with Your Kids

Intimacy is the glue that holds families together.  It's what connects us over the years, and across the miles. It's what gets us through the hard times.  It's the grease that smooths the rough interactions of everyday life, and the honey that makes it all worth it.

Intimacy is hard to define, but we all know when we're feeling it.  Whether it's crying on your best friend's shoulder after a tragedy or snuggling in companionable silence with your spouse in front of the fire, intimacy is when we feel connected.

How we humans build connections with each other, how we deepen them, and how we repair them when they fray is both as simple as a warm smile and as mysterious as the way the ground lurches when we see a picture of someone we have loved and lost.

John Gottman, one of my favorite researchers, has distilled the creating of intimate relationships down to their practical essence.  It turns out that the building blocks of connection are the small overtures we make to each other every day, and the way our loved ones respond.  Gottman calls these bids, as in "bids for attention."  We could also call them overtures, as in opening movements.

In happy relationships, whether between spouses, parents and children, friends, or coworkers, bids are made and responded to warmly.  It almost doesn't matter what the bid is about; the process of reaching out and receiving a response builds the relationship. It also increases the trust level so that we are  more likely to reach out to that person again, and the content of the bids deepens.

If we begin with "What a beautiful morning!"  and receive an enthusiastic agreement, we may go further and ask our spouse for help in solving a problem that's bothering us.  If, on the other hand, our comment is ignored, or greeted with sarcasm,we are unlikely to make ourselves vulnerable in any way, and the relationship loses a chance to deepen.

The same process is enacted with our children in hundreds of daily interactions. If we ask our middle schooler about the upcoming school dance and receive an engaged response, we might venture further and ask whether she's nervous.  If, on the other hand, our comment is ignored, or her response is surly, most of us will back off.

So how can you create a more intimate family?

1. Start by paying attention to the "bids"  that go on.  What is the tone in your family?  Responsive and warm?  Distracted and ignoring?  Hostile and sarcastic?  Does anyone get ignored?  Does anyone usually ignore others?

2. Focus on responding positively to your family's bids to you.  It takes real self-discipline to tear yourself away from your screen to answer a child's question, but how you respond to her overture is crucial in building closeness.  More important than what you initiate with her later, when you try to get her to tell you about what happened at school today.  To support yourself, make it a practice to turn off your screens when you're with your child.

3. If you don't get the response you want to your overtures to your kids, step back and watch how you initiate.  Are you inviting a positive response? 

4.  If you make an overture and are greeted with something hurtful -- disdain, sarcasm, or blankness -- try not to respond with anger.  Instead, show your vulnerability and hurt.  Say "Ouch!" and turn away (before you give in to the temptation to lash out.)  Your son or daughter (or spouse!) will almost certainly feel badly about having hurt you, especially since you haven't aroused their ire by attacking back.  Later, when you aren't hurt  and angry, you can tell them how it made you feel to get that response.  Try to talk only about your feelings, not about them being wrong.

Intimacy is a dance.  It deepens or is eroded by every interaction we have.  The good news is that every interaction you have is a chance to shift onto a positive track and deepen your connection to your loved ones.http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/connection/nurturing-intimacy

Building a Great Relationship with Your Child

Want to be a great parent?  Want to raise a happy, healthy, well-behaved kid?  Want to live in a home where discipline becomes unnecessary?  The secret is to create a closer connection with your child. 

"What do you mean?  Of course I love my kid, and I tell him so all the time.  But that doesn't mean he doesn't need discipline!"

It isn’t enough that we tell our children we love them.  We need to put our love into action every day for them to feel it.  And when we do that our kids need a lot less discipline!

"But what does that mean, putting our love into action?"

Mostly, it means making that connection with our child our highest priority. Love in action means paying thoughtful attention to what goes on between us, seeing things from the our child's point of view, and always remembering that this child who sometimes may drive us crazy is still that precious baby we welcomed into our arms with such hope.

"Doesn't that take a lot of energy?"

It takes a lot of effort to fully attend to another human being, but when we are really present with our child, we often find that it energizes us and makes us feel more alive, as being fully present with anyone does.  Being close to another human takes work. But 90% of people on their deathbed say that their biggest regret is that they didn't get closer to the people in their lives. And almost all parents whose children are grown say they wish they had spent more time with their kids.

"Being fully present?  How can I do that when I'm just trying to get dinner on the table and keep from tripping over the toys?"

Being present just means paying attention. Like a marriage or a friendship, your relationship with your child needs positive attention to thrive. Attention = Love.  Like your garden, your car, or your work, what you attend to flourishes.  And, of course, that kind of attentiveness takes time.  You can multi-task at it while you're making dinner, but the secret of a great relationship is some focused time every day attending only to that child.

"This is all too vague for me. What am I supposed to actually DO?"

1. Start right for a firm foundation. The closeness of the parent-child connection throughout life results from how much parents connect with their babies, right from the beginning.  For instance, research has shown that fathers who take a week or more off work when their babies are born have a closer relationship with their child at every stage, including as teens and college students. Is this cause and effect? The bonding theorists say that if a man bonds with his newborn, he will stay closer to her throughout life. But you don't have to believe that bonding with a newborn is crucial to note that the kind of man who treasures his newborn and nurtures his new family is likely to continue doing so in ways that bring them closer throughout her childhood.

2. Remember that all relationships take work. Good parent-child connections don’t spring out of nowhere, any more than good marriages do. Biology gives us a headstart -- if we weren’t biologically programmed to love our infants the human race would have died out long ago -- but as kids get older we need to build on that natural bond, or the challenges of modern life can erode it. Luckily, children automatically love their parents. As long as we don't blow that, we can keep the connection strong.

3. Prioritize time with your child. Assume that you'll need to put in a significant amount of time creating a good relationship with your child. Quality time is a myth, because there’s no switch to turn on closeness. Imagine that you work all the time, and have set aside an evening with your husband, whom you’ve barely seen in the past six months. Does he immediately start baring his soul? Not likely.

In relationships, without quantity, there’s no quality. You can’t expect a good relationship with your daughter if you spend all your time at work and she spends all her time with her friends. So as hard as it is with the pressures of job and daily life, if we want a better relationship with our kids, we have to free up the time to make that happen.

4. Start with trust, the foundation of every good relationship. Trust begins in infancy, when your baby learns whether she can depend on you to pick her up when she needs you. By the time babies are a year old, researchers can assess whether babies are “securely attached” to their parents, which basically means the baby trusts that his parents can be depended on to meet his emotional and physical needs.

Over time, we earn our children’s trust in other ways: following through on the promise we make to play a game with them later, not breaking a confidence, picking them up on time.

At the same time, we extend our trust to them by expecting the best from them and believing in their fundamental goodness and potential. We trust in the power of human development to help our child grow, learn, and mature. We trust that although our child may act like a child today, he or she is always developing into a more mature person (just as, hopefully, we are.) We trust that no matter what he or she does, there is always the potential for positive change.

Trust does not mean blindly believing what your teenager tells you. Trust means not giving up on your child, no matter what he or she does. Trust means never walking away from the relationship in frustration, because you trust that she needs you and that you will find a way to work things out.

5. Encourage, Encourage, Encourage. Think of your child as a plant who is programmed by nature to grow and blossom.  If you see the plant has brown leaves, you consider if maybe it needs more light, more water, more fertilizer.  You don't criticize it and yell at it to straighten up and grow right.

Kids form their view of themselves and the world every day. They need your encouragement to see themselves as good people who are capable of good things. And they need to know you're on their side. If most of what comes out of your mouth is correction or criticism, they won't feel good about themselves, and they won't feel like you're their ally. You lose your only leverage with them, and they lose something every kid needs: to know they have an adult who thinks the world of them.

6. Remember that respect must be mutual. Pretty obvious, right? But we forget this with our kids, because we know we’re supposed to be the boss. You can still set limits (and you must), but if you do it respectfully and with empathy, your child will learn both to treat others with respect and to expect to be treated respectfully himself.

Once when I became impatient with my then 3 year old, he turned to me and said “I don’t like it when you talk to me that way.” A friend who was with us said, “If he’s starting this early, you’re going to have big problems when he’s a teenager!” In fact, rather than challenging my authority, my toddler was simply asking to be treated with the dignity he had come to expect. Now a teenager, he continues to treat himself, me, and others, respectfully. And he chooses peers who treat him respectfully. Isn’t that what we all want for our kids?

7. Think of relationships as the slow accretion of daily interactions. You don’t have to do anything special to build a relationship with your child. The good -- and bad -- news is that every interaction creates the relationship. Grocery shopping, carpooling and bathtime matter as much as that big talk you have when there’s a problem. He doesn’t want to share his toy, or go to bed, or do his homework? How you handle it is one brick in the foundation of your permanent relationship, as well as his ideas about all relationships.

That’s one reason it’s worth thinking through any recurring interactions that get on your nerves to see how you might handle them differently. Interactions that happen more than once tend to initiate a pattern. Nagging and criticizing are no basis for a relationship with someone you love. And besides, your life is too short for you to spend it in a state of annoyance.

8. Communication habits start early. Do you listen when she prattles on interminably about her friends at preschool, even when you have more important things to think about? Then she’s more likely to tell you about her interactions with boys when she’s fourteen.

It’s hard to pay attention when you’re rushing to pick up food for dinner and get home, but if you aren’t really listening, two things happen. You miss an opportunity to learn about and teach your child, and she learns that you don’t really listen so there’s not much point in talking.

9. Don't take it personally. Your teenager slams the door to her bedroom. Your ten year old huffs "Mom, you never understand!" Your four year old screams "I hate you, Daddy!" What's the most important thing to remember? DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY! This isn't primarily about you, it's about them: their tangled up feelings, their difficulty controlling themselves, their immature ability to understand and express their emotions. Taking it personally wounds you, which means you do what we all do when hurt: either close off, or lash out, or both. Which just worsens a tough situation for all concerned.

Remembering not to take it personally means you:

• Take a deep breath
• Let the hurt go
• Remind yourself that your child does in fact love you but can't get in touch with it at the moment
• Consciously lower your voice
• Try hard to remember what it feels like to be a kid who is upset and over-reacting.
• Think through how to respond calmly and constructively.

You can still set limits, but you do it from as calm a place as you can muster. Your child will be deeply grateful, even if she can't acknowledge it at the moment.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that you let your child treat you disrespectfully. I'm suggesting you act out of love, rather than anger, as you set limits. And if you're too angry to get in touch with your love at the moment, then wait. 

10. Resist the impulse to be punitive. How would you feel about someone who hurt, threatened, or humiliated you, "for your own good"?  Kids do need our guidance, but punishing your child always erodes your relationship, which makes your child misbehave more.  

11. Don’t let little rifts build up.  If something’s wrong between you, find a way to bring it up and work it through positively. Choosing to withdraw (except temporarily, strategically) when your child seems intent on driving you away isALWAYS a mistake. Every difficulty is an opportunity to get closer or create distance. 

12. Re-connect after every separation.  Parents naturally provide an anchor, or compass, for kids to attach to and stay oriented around. When they're apart from us they need a substitute, so they orient themselves around teachers, coaches, electronics, or peers. When we rejoin each other physically we need to also rejoin emotionally.  Click here for ideas on staying connected to your child.

13. Stay available. Most kids don’t keep an agenda and bring things up at a scheduled meeting. And nothing makes them clam up faster than pressing them to talk. Kids talk when something is up for them, particularly if you've proven yourself to be a good listener, but not overly attached to their opening up to you. 

Being on hand when they come home is a sure-fire way to hear the highlights of the day with younger kids, and even, often, with older ones. With older kids, simply being in the same room doing something can create the opportunity for interaction. If you’re cooking dinner and she’s doing homework, for instance, or the two of you are in the car alone, there's often an opening. Of course, if one of you is hunched over the computer, the interaction is likely to be more limited. Find ways to be in proximity where you’re both potentially available, without it seeming like a demand.

This may seem obvious, but stating your availability is helpful, even with teens. "I'll be in the kitchen making dinner if you want me" or "I have to run to the grocery store, but don't hesitate to call my cell phone if you need me."

But the most important part of staying available is a state of mind. Your child will sense your emotional availability. Parents who have close relationships with their teens often say that as their child has gotten older, they've made it a practice to drop everything else if their teen signals a desire to talk. This can be difficult if you're also handling a demanding job and other responsibilities, of course. But kids who feel that other things are more important to their parents often look elsewhere when they're emotionally needy. And that's our loss, as much as theirs.http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/connection/building-relationship

Teenagers (age 16-18 years)

Here’s where you get fired as the boss. If you've done a good enough job you get rehired as a trusted friend and advisor. If you continue to do a good job, your teen may well even take your advice.

It's appropriate for your teen to want to make her own decisions now, and to think for herself.  And yet teens are still developing, and have widely varying levels of maturity. It can be a scary time for parents, especially those who don't yet trust their teen's judgment. 

The most effective parenting strategy with teens is to focus on the relationship.  Punishments just drive your teen away and make it less likely that you'll have the information about what's going on in his life that you need to be a good parent.  The only leverage you really have with your teen is love.

It's appropriate for teens to be oriented more to their peers than their parents now, but kids who are well grounded in their families will respond well to parents' efforts to stay connected.  And parents who have bonded adequately with their children at each earlier stage will feel invested enough in their teens to stay connected, even if a lot of effort is required.

http://www.ahaparenting.com/Default.aspx?PageID=1275714&A=SearchResult&SearchID=7699642&ObjectID=1275714&ObjectType=1

How to Raise a Child of Character

Parents often ask how to raise a child with good character and values, in the context of a culture that often seems to reward the opposite.  The simplest answer is that children learn what they live, so if you live your values, your kids are likely to as well.

It's also true that talking explicitly about our values helps kids to develop them, especially in the face of teachings from the media or their peers that might go against what you believe.

Finally, there are definitely ways that you can encourage your child to be thoughtful, generous, responsible, courageous -- a person of character. To read more about encouraging the development of specific traits in your child, click below.

Values

The way children learn values, simply put, is by observing what you do, and drawing conclusions about what you think is important in life. Regardless of what you consciously teach them, your children will emerge from childhood with clear views on what their parents really value, and with a well developed value system of their own. (Read article.)

"Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you."
-- H. Jackson Brown

http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/raise-great-kids/child-character