Stop trying to be your child’s best friend
Your kids have enough friends, they only have one mother
The job of parenting is incredibly complex. You love your children with all your heart but there comes a time when you have to exhibit ‘tough love.’ You need to discipline them so they get a grasp of boundaries that we all must fall within throughout our lives. You might find yourself torn between wanting to be a ‘fun parent’ that your kids adore, as well as the all-wise adult they can turn to when times are tough.
But what you don’t need to be for your child is their best friend. You already have friends. They already have friends. What they need from you is to be their parent, and this is particularly important as they go through adolescence and need a parent to help guide them towards adulthood.
Years ago I met ‘Tammy,’ a mother at my kids’ school who encouraged her children to call her by her first name. She didn’t want them to call her ‘mum’ because she wanted them to see her as their friend, not ‘just a mother.’
Friends don’t punish friends
As I got to know Tammy I realised the mother/child ‘friendship’ went far beyond the way they addressed their parents — Tammy wanted to be her children’s best friend in more ways than one. She rarely disciplined them, because friends don’t punish friends…
