Teach Your Children to Get to Know You!

In the October issue of the Awake magazine, given to me by my sister-in-law, there were some great unbiased tips and ideas for children on getting to know their parents better.   As I read, it struck me that due to the extremely high divorce rate all over the world, this is a matter that I would like to touch on and hope to inspire some of our BFSO readers to share with their children.    

I remember when I was younger, my mother would tell me stories about her youth and teenage years.   As I stepped into young adulthood and began to make plenty of mistakes, she would elaborate about her mistakes and the lessons she learned from them as well.   I felt blessed to have shared these experiences because sometimes parents are fearful of expressing their mistakes to their children out of fear that their children will think less of them.  However, in my case, some of the mistakes I made were easier to trudge through knowing that my mother had “been there, done that.”  I was more open to listening to her and to learning from the past.

For our children, there is always room for them to get to know us better.  There are many benefits for children in getting to know their parents better.   First, there is so much to learn about their family history, their family lives, their attitudes and perceptions and their love.   Due to the high divorce rates, a lot of us know little or nothing about our parents.  Distance between residences plays a huge role.  However, even if your parents aren’t divorced, they probably haven’t told you everything about themselves.

Here are just a few more benefits that help our children to better understand us:

1.   Your children will gain knowledgeable insight into your point of views.

2.   You will become more comfortable sharing experiences with your children.

3.  Your children will appreciate your efforts to teach them about your life and your family.

Remember, teaching our children about us, as parents, in turn teaches them about life.  For example, sharing with them about our struggles reinforces our decisions when they are having to be made regarding our children (i.e., they will understand why at times we have to be frugal with our money because we always had less materially growing up).  Or, another example of opening up communication might be a father might share the experience of his “first love” with his daughter so that when the time comes that she needs to open up about her first boyfriend or crush, she will be comfortable with talking to her father.   Fathers can teach their daughters so many lessons, but most of the time, shy away from talking to their daughters. 

Teaching our children about our life experiences will help them with their own struggles and frustrations when they themselves reach adulthood.  Obviously, some conversations are hard to initiate like the father/daughter example above, but often times the answers to your children’s questions will lead to a story or some example that you can provide for them. 

Communicating with our children creates strong bonds not to mention when they are older, they will appreciate all of the lessons they have learned, all of the conversations they have had and, most importantly, all that they know about their parents.  Then, they will pass those same lessons on to their own children in the future.

Peace and Blessings,
Di