Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot or should not be friends with your kids.  How do you think your kids learn to be a friend to others? The best way is for their parent to be a friend to them. 

How would you like it if your kids learned that friendship meant being untrustworthy or mean from a classmate or neighborhood child?  That just might happen if you don’t teach your kids first hand about healthy friendships.

Think of teaching friendship like a teeter-totter.   The parent sits on one end and the child on the other.  Sometimes the parent has to push off and sometimes hold steady and sometimes drop to the ground. 

When your child needs you to keep them steady and safe by teach them rules and telling them when to stop that is not the time to be their friend.  But, when your child wants to play, laugh, be silly and truly enjoy your company, be their friend. 

Friendship is a personal relationship with your child. 

Parenting is your position relationship with your child.  If all you have with your child is a personal relationship, they will think you are a ‘push-over’.  And without a position relationship, they will think all you do is boss them around.

If your kids aren’t friends with you they won’t come back home to hang out with you when they are grown, like my kids.  If all you do is dictate, there is no relationship for them to return to and you’ve lost your kids once they leave home.

So be a parent and say to them loud and clear, “You’ve Got A Friend”!
Your friendly Parenting Doctor, Ann Corwin