The concept of trust is complex, and building such a relationship with a child is especially difficult. The ability to trust yourself and others is at the core of any good relationship, and you can begin to build your child's sense of trust as an infant by responding to her physical and emotional needs.
As the child grows, you can try to increase his ability to trust. To do this, you need to try to create a favorable environment in which you listen to children and keep your promises.
Why do you need to build trusting relationships with children?
General trust building with your child comes down to thinking about what helps you build trust with the important people around you. When we think of trust, words like “integrity” or “character” come to mind—we expect a person or thing to be reliable, truthful, and capable of doing what they claim.
In addition, trusting relationships between children and parents make it possible to avoid overly strict and even abusive upbringing, minimize quarrels in the family and reduce parents’ anxiety about their children.
What are the parameters of education?
Among the parameters of parental education, it is worth highlighting parental control and parental requirements. Why exactly them?
Every parent usually demands exemplary behavior from their child. The higher the parents' demands and expectations, the more the child tries to exceed these expectations. But sometimes a parent can get too carried away, not realizing that the child cannot always live up to their desires and hopes.
As a result, the child makes every effort to make the parent happy, but does not receive proper encouragement and praise. Because of this, dissonance occurs and the child’s psychological state is disturbed. Therefore, the parent must control his requirements and understand whether they are feasible for the little person. Otherwise, it may negatively affect his health.
It has become the norm for parents that all the actions of their children are under their strict control. In many families, it is accepted that children obey their parents and unquestioningly do what they are told. This comes either at the genetic level or from childhood. But this is how it used to be: children had to obey their elders and follow any of their instructions.
How to try to build trust between parents and children?
Listen
Listening to a child means not only recognizing his words, but more importantly, striving to truly understand him or see the main idea between the lines. For example, when he says, “I hate you, Mom!”, he doesn’t mean this terrible strong feeling, but rather says something like, “I’m angry that you make me go to kindergarten or school.”
Communication is the cornerstone of trust. The more you talk openly with your child, the better your relationship will develop. Take time to talk with your children. Ask their opinion on something. Listen with love, compassion and non-judgment.
Use eye contact
People learn a lot about a person's intentions by focusing on their eyes. When speaking to your child, lean down and carefully look into his eyes. Let him see that you are sincere with him.
One of the best ways to gain your child's trust is to listen to him when he has something to say. No matter what you do, making eye contact and showing genuine interest in what your child is telling you will be an important step towards building trust.
Be honest
This advice seems obvious, but many parents forget about such an important thing as honesty. Of course, you need to maintain an age-appropriate level of honesty, but if you are always honest with your child, he will begin to trust you naturally, without much effort. It's better to answer 100 questions than risk breaking trust.
Make it a habit not to use lies for the benefit of your children. This helps children combine verbal and nonverbal communication, reducing confusion. This will also enable them to understand what positive moral ethics is. If there is some information the child shouldn’t know yet, just don’t tell it, but don’t resort to outright lies. Yes, even about storks and cabbage.
Establish a routine and take care of boundaries
This point significantly affects trust, although, at first glance, it has nothing to do with the topic. Routines and consistency help reduce conflicts because the child quickly understands that his attempts to resist are useless. For example, when he insists on “ten more minutes,” he will calm down faster if the parent responds in a calm tone: “It would be great to have ten more minutes, but they will make us late.”
Consistency also reduces anxiety: when a child expects a certain reaction from a parent, he may develop a sense of fairness. When we feel like we're being treated fairly, we can let our guard down—which is key to trust.
Setting and maintaining boundaries creates a slightly different type of trust: a firm belief that the parent will maintain the safety and integrity of the child's life.
Be open
Openness about parental shortcomings, fears and difficulties helps children believe that all this is safe and not at all scary. Nothing builds confidence more than admitting your mistakes. Ideal parents do not exist, and the sooner this realization comes, the easier it will be to build trusting relationships with children. If you made a mistake, apologize to your child and let him know how sorry you are.
Don't make promises
You should avoid making promises to children, especially on the spur of the moment, because they are often difficult to keep. Sometimes situations arise that require you to change plans; If you didn't promise something, these changes are easier to explain.
On the other hand, if you have already promised your child something, follow through with it. An important part of keeping promises is not using them to reduce your guilt or as a substitute for saying no. Only promise something that sounds reasonable and that you can safely complete. Be a reliable parent.
Children from birth trust their parents. The more often you change your mind or don’t follow through on what you promised, the less reliable you become in the eyes of your children. The child needs to know that his parents will always try to keep their promises.
Be careful
In the era of social networks, children become even more fragile morally - any public shame can lead to bullying on social networks and even beyond. Although children may need discipline, making a spectacle of punishment is not a good idea. In fact, such actions can destroy any trust you have built with your child. Moreover, he will not be able to feel safe anywhere.
Overall: it is better to leave all educational processes at home. There are few things that so completely destroy a child’s contact with a parent than their public reproach of their own child.
Be a role model
The child watches everything his parents do: this helps form his opinion about whether the adult is trustworthy. It is important that you model the behaviors that you want your children to practice.
For example, if you expect your child to make the bed every day, you should also make the bed every day. If you expect him to speak respectfully to others, you should do the same. The more often children see that you adhere to the values and rules you teach them, the more they will trust you.
Show your child that you trust him
Trust in a relationship goes both ways, and by acknowledging and empathizing with your child, you teach him that no matter what he does, you will always be there for him. This means he can be given a little more responsibility.
Trust him to fold clothes, wash dishes, or help you cook. Don't always expect success and try not to react too harshly if he accidentally breaks a glass and wrinkles a shirt he just ironed. Developing skills is a long process, but by empowering yourself, you show your child that you trust him. You may be upset about something, but it's important to always let him know that you have full confidence in his ability to make good choices in the future.
Respect your child's need for privacy
Trust also means that you respect your child's right to confidentiality in certain matters (except in cases where it is necessary to intervene in an emergency). Sometimes he may not want to talk about everything that's going on in his life, and you need to be okay with that. Your child may one day not want to talk about school or what he did on a date. This is an iron rule: when he has a personal life, it should be personal. If he wants, he will tell you.
If you have no reason to believe that there is something that absolutely needs to be discussed, it is okay to allow your child to have a part of their life that is separate from you. At this stage of development, it is necessary for him to feel a positive sense of separation from you as he develops his own self.
Positive parenting techniques work well to raise children with discipline and high moral values, and this is every parent's dream. However, this is no easy feat. And it is important to know that the relationship between parents and children is a two-way street, in other words, it is actually a partnership between a parent and their child.
Have a good relationship with your children, harmony and mutual understanding.
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The family develops the child.
The more parents devote time to their child, the more full-fledged member of society he grows. Thanks to the sensitive attention of mom and dad, any child will develop into a mature personality and will be ready to enter adulthood.
But parents often ignore this fact. Sometimes a child wants to speak out, share, ask for advice, but at that moment the parents are busy with their own affairs and work. And it also happens that a child has only one parent and he cannot give enough attention and love to his baby. Then the child looks for where to make up for the communication lost from an early age.
The child keeps all his experiences inside, begins to withdraw into himself, and then splashes out all his problems on the surrounding society.
Network of relationships
If we imagine a family that is created by people who were once married and their children, then such a family in its structure will resemble a molecule, where the central place is occupied by the child (children), who is connected by invisible threads with other family members:
- with the parent with whom he stayed;
- with an ex-husband/wife who at the same time does not cease to be a parent for the child;
- with stepfather/stepmother.
At the same time, adults form their own connections and relationships:
- stepfather/stepmother and wife/husband (new family);
- ex-husband and wife among themselves;
- ex-husband and stepfather/stepmother.
Sometimes, if adults do not have enough resources to leave the relationship painlessly, these connections can poison the new emerging family and negatively affect the child. Below are the moments of toxic interaction in these ligaments and the consequences for the child.
Parent + “new parent”
Bringing together partners to influence children without taking into account the interests of children. →
The child’s feelings: he is superfluous, now unwanted, his biological parent becomes a changeling - not the same as he was before, changes his views. The feeling that the familiar and comfortable world is collapsing like a house of cards.
Parent + “former parent”
Using a child to further one’s own ambitions, an attempt to win them over to one’s side, the desire to “outdo the nose” of one’s ex, blackmail. →
Child: he is presented with a choice that he is unable to make. This can lead to neuroses and loss of will. Nurturing negative feelings in a child. Severing it from its roots.
"Former parent" + "new parent"
Competition, jealousy. Using a child to obtain information; a child is a battlefield. →
The child feels useless, the lack of value of his personality, used.
