Reflection
I am a huge believer in the role parents play in their child’s development. Parents have one of the hardest and most meaningful jobs this life can offer. They are responsible and gifted with the opportunity to raise another human. With this comes a responsibility to pass on what the parent believes is most important to their child and prepare their child to walk through the good and bad times in their life. This is hard work as mentioned and takes intentional learning and teaching by parents.
As I learned through the Helping Relationship there are many ways to help people, but fixing their problems for them is not an effective way. Parents need to actively listen, have empathy, be willing to learn, not assume, and guide their children appropriately. By doing all these things they will teach their children to solve their own problems.
Teaching someone anything first takes a relationship. What I have learned most from my class working with parents, and actual interaction with parents is they must first have a deep relationship with their child. Then and only then can they speak into their lives and teach/guide them as they want. This is not an easy task, but takes years of building trust beginning as a child through attachment. A child needs an adult in their lives that they are attached to and can trust. This attachment is built from the parent meeting the child’s needs, hunger, love, care, hygiene, and learning during the first five years of life. If this attachment is not developed not only will the parent have a very difficult forming a deep relationship with their child, but their child will struggle developing deep relationships with all people in their future. IT is vital that a child develops a strong attachment with their parent and then that will grow as they get older.
After forming a strong attachment with their child, parents have to work to keep growing that relationship so that it is appropriately deep for each stage of their child’s life. Parents can do this by getting involved in their child’s life. They need to ask them questions and support them. Tangibly this can be asking who are your friends and how are your relationships with them and going to their sporting events. Those are just tow simple examples of many ways parents can get involved. In my family, my sister has a study group that comes to our house at least one evening a week and spend time with my parents as they eat/study/mess around. It has made it easy for my parents to know how my sisters friends are and how she is doing at school. They still need to initially ask her personal questions, but having her friends over has opened the door even more for those conversations and getting into my sisters world. Only after getting involved in her life are they really able to teach her. Children are then willing to let their parents speak into their lives and follow their wisdom once they have a deep relationship.
All parents need encouragement and every parent and child relationship is different. Therefore when working with parents do not assume anything, but always be willing to learn from them. They know their children best and while we will be able to educate about universals, but take time to make it personal.
Laura L Baumgartner 