How to Improve Your Relationship with Your Children During Quarantine

Your relationship with your children: Ups and downs

Without a doubt, child-raising and your relationship with your children, as parents, is both a marvelous and complex task. On occasion, it’s hard to find the right balance. On the one hand, we need to educate them and establish the limits they need for their wellbeing and development. At the same time, we need to give them wings and the freedom they need to find their own path to freedom.

As parents, your relationship with your children involves taking steps to teach them what the real world is like and how they should interact with it. We share our love and happiness with them, yet on occasion, many of our own frustrations and unfulfilled desires as well.

So, at times, we’re not able to reflect on the pressures that we place on our children. Without even realizing it, we become more concerned with making our children be a certain way or do certain things than asking ourselves if they’re actually happy.

Time to dialogue with your children

Without a doubt, one of the many things you can do to strengthen and improve your relationship with your children is setting aside time for them. 

When we talk about time, we’re referring to quality time. In other words, we’re talking about spending time sharing and doing things with them. Time to dialogue, to listen, and to understand them.

Of course, the circumstances that have led us to our current quarantine circumstances are unfortunate. But, at the same time, this time in our lives is also a priceless gift that we may never get to experience again. 

Under normal circumstances, it’s nearly impossible to have this much time to spend with those we love. This is a time you need to take advantage of and invest in improving your relationship with your children.

So then, you may wonder what you can do, as a parent, and how you can improve your relationship with your children during quarantine. Well, you can do so through actions as simple as those we’ll list below:

• Gain a deeper understanding about their relationships and their lives. Take the time to get to know more about their peers, who their friends are, and what they’re like. Discover more about their activities, interests, and hobbies, and explore them together.
• Talk to your kids about things that may be worrying them. And make them feel they can talk to you about anything, no matter how “taboo” it may seem. As parents, we should be prepared to talk about everything with our kids. And that means asking them questions directly. Is there something you want to talk about? Is there something you’re worried about? Etc.
• Pay attention and motivate them in some activity or skill that they demonstrate during this quarantine. In other words, show interest in the things they like and that catch their attention. This may be games, crafts, television series, or a myriad of other things.

Ask questions to improve your relationship with your children

Ask, ask, ask. Asking questions is a great strategy when it comes to improving your relationship with your children. This is true whether they’re young children or teens. This way, they’ll come to understand that you’re not only interested in establishing control. They’ll see that you’re also interested in what they feel and think.

And there are millions of questions you can ask your children. No matter how silly it may seem, any question can act as a prelude to a range of throughs and feelings. Then you can dialogue and resolve any issues that may exist.

Here are just some of the questions you can ask:

• What would you like to study?
• What would you like to do when you’re older and why?
• What do you think about us adults?
• How would you like to see your relationship with your family?
• What do you expect from life?
• What do you think the most important thing in life is? 

Or you can simply ask them things like:

• Are you happy?
• Are you okay?
• How do you feel?
• What do you think about love?

The basis of any relationship is communication and dialogue, and your relationship with your children is no exception. Dialogue allows us to get to know one another and understand each other better and put us in one another’s shoes. Therefore, during quarantine, the best way to improve your relationship with your children is by reinforcing dialogue with them.

So, this way, you’ll be able to continue to enjoy this exciting adventure and the unexpected but exhilarating ups and downs of the roller coaster of life with children.