Strong parent child relationships

Having a strong parent child relationship can really make it easier to parent, and to guide your child to the kind of life you wish them to live. However, like with every relationship, it can be difficult to find the right balance. The following is a look at some tips for how to develop a strong parent child relationship.

Tip one: Know where to draw the line. Being a friend and a cool parent is great, enjoy concerts together, shopping, playing video games, etc. but encouraging your child to drink, take drugs, or enabling their bad habits is crossing the line, and will undermine the parent child relationship rather than strengthen it. Make sure your child knows that while you want to have a fun relationship with them and be their friend, you are their parent first.
Tip two: Set boundaries. While your child may relish the idea of having all kinds of freedom to do what they please, good parent child relationships include rules, boundaries, and consequences that are attached to the said rules. You can let your children go out at night with their friends, but they should be back by a reasonable hour. You can give your child free reign when it comes to when they do their homework, for example, let them do it when they want rather than on your time line, but if they start ignoring it and their grades drop, you step in. The list goes on. The idea is that your kids should have freedoms, and be allowed to make choices, but within acceptable boundaries. Rules show your child you love them enough to not let them screw up their life.
Tip three: Have fun with your child. Parenting can seem like endless rebukes, enforcing rules, and hounding your kids about their choices. It can be difficult to get a good relationship with your child when most of your interaction seems to be negative in nature. So, improve the relationship, and help make it strong by mixing a fair amount of good and fun into the parenting. Let them know they have to spend time with the family, but make that time fun. Take your kids to movies, the beach, to do things they enjoy, etc. Life does not have to be all work and no play, and your family and child or children are the best people to play with.
These three ingredients are going to make a huge difference in the strength of your parent child relationship. Take the time to sit down with your child and establish rules they will follow, and consequences that will be enforced when those rules are broken. Then, be sure to have fun with them, talk to them, and know what is going on in their life. As a parent it is your job to make sure they are not engaged in things that will hurt them, damage their future, or inhibit their potential.