Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share How Your Attitude Toward Other People Affects Your Child
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
How Your Attitude Toward Other People Affects Your Child
[Week 1 of 52 Weeks to a Better Relationship With Your Child]
The trust of a child
Trust is the basis of any thriving relationship. This is no less true with a child. Oddly, children seem to have built in trust-sensors. What we might be able to fake with adults, children will see right through. They probably don’t even know they are evaluating whether or not you, a parent, can be trusted, but they have a vantage point that is as unique as it is needy.
One important way they evaluate a parent’s trustworthiness is by how other people are treated. This falls into two categories.
1. How does a parent treat people within the household
2. How does a parent treat people outside the household
How home gets into the heart
Inside the house, the child gets to see how a parent problem solves with others. There is nothing quite like living together that exposes our tendencies to selfishness and lack of self-control. Is a parent able to discuss concerns and differences of opinion in productive ways? Is it done with care for the other people involved? Is a parent honest about his/her own limitations? Is conflict approached from a foundation of humility, for all of us should admit we are constantly learning more of life and rarely fully understand another’s point of view.
By humility, I don’t mean groveling. That is not humility of the right sort. The right sort of humility will be blended with a reasonable amount of confidence in self-worth. Self-worth is, in my mind, different from self-esteem. Self-esteem is built on the unstable foundation of accomplishment, while self-worth is simply that we each have an inherent value as human beings.
I by no means imply that a parent must be perfect in any of these areas, for no parent is. However, there does need to be a consistency that tends toward predictable reactions. The bottom line is that a parent needs to do what it takes to develop these qualities of compassionate self-control in solving conflicts. The child is watching.
The other parent is still the most common person that a child will see a parent interact with. The child will see if there is care and respect for the other person and the relationship. There may also be either older children or aging grandparents in the household. A parent must understand that how any of these others are treated will affect how the child will respond to relationship with the parent.
A couple of ways to build trust in the home
One crucial way for respect and care for the other parent to be manifest is by NOT complaining about the other parent. Don’t do it vocally when the other parent is there and don’t do it when he/she is gone. Don’t do it in any kind of passive aggressive way either. Of course, I mean real complaining. There may be a place for family jokes, if everyone is in on th
View all episodes
By Laura Blodgett[Week 1 of 52 Weeks to a Better Relationship With Your Child]
The trust of a child
Trust is the basis of any thriving relationship. This is no less true with a child. Oddly, children seem to have built in trust-sensors. What we might be able to fake with adults, children will see right through. They probably don’t even know they are evaluating whether or not you, a parent, can be trusted, but they have a vantage point that is as unique as it is needy.
One important way they evaluate a parent’s trustworthiness is by how other people are treated. This falls into two categories.
1. How does a parent treat people within the household
2. How does a parent treat people outside the household
How home gets into the heart
Inside the house, the child gets to see how a parent problem solves with others. There is nothing quite like living together that exposes our tendencies to selfishness and lack of self-control. Is a parent able to discuss concerns and differences of opinion in productive ways? Is it done with care for the other people involved? Is a parent honest about his/her own limitations? Is conflict approached from a foundation of humility, for all of us should admit we are constantly learning more of life and rarely fully understand another’s point of view.
By humility, I don’t mean groveling. That is not humility of the right sort. The right sort of humility will be blended with a reasonable amount of confidence in self-worth. Self-worth is, in my mind, different from self-esteem. Self-esteem is built on the unstable foundation of accomplishment, while self-worth is simply that we each have an inherent value as human beings.
I by no means imply that a parent must be perfect in any of these areas, for no parent is. However, there does need to be a consistency that tends toward predictable reactions. The bottom line is that a parent needs to do what it takes to develop these qualities of compassionate self-control in solving conflicts. The child is watching.
The other parent is still the most common person that a child will see a parent interact with. The child will see if there is care and respect for the other person and the relationship. There may also be either older children or aging grandparents in the household. A parent must understand that how any of these others are treated will affect how the child will respond to relationship with the parent.
A couple of ways to build trust in the home
One crucial way for respect and care for the other parent to be manifest is by NOT complaining about the other parent. Don’t do it vocally when the other parent is there and don’t do it when he/she is gone. Don’t do it in any kind of passive aggressive way either. Of course, I mean real complaining. There may be a place for family jokes, if everyone is in on th