What a treasure it was to have a strong friendship with my parents growing up. I look back in thankfulness at the times when my dad would tuck me in at night and just spend a few moments in conversation and prayer together, or when my mom would take me out to coffee and just talk together. There were many emotional moments during my teens when these times provided necessary stability and strength for my soul. It would often just require a listening ear to provide the support necessary to keep me going through those emotional roller coasters. Each moment of time my parents invested in building a relationship with me strengthened my respect for them and desire to imitate their faith.
Sally Clarkson in chapter 7 of Mission of Motherhood gives a call to mothers (and I would definitely include fathers in this) to establish a friendship with their children. It is not all about training, correcting, or disciplining, but must be properly balanced with the understanding that part of our eternal influence on their souls comes through simply investing quality (not necessarily quantity) time in making our children our best friends.
She shares the example of a precious tea pot full of memories that would be used time and time again as a means of sitting down with a child who needed a little love and talking together and allowing them the freedom and protective environment to open up and share their hearts. Rather than correcting every bad attitude, she discerns whether there might just be a deeper issue at hand that needs to be talked through.
“Because people will last through eternity, relationships have eternal significance. The relationships we make and cultivate and nurture will also sustain us throughout all of life’s seasons…When children have a a safe haven – a place to be protected from the storms of life; a place to be emotionally, mentally, and spiritually encouraged; a place where they enjoy the time and attention from the important people in their lives – and time in which to mature, then they will have a good opportunity to become emotionally healthy and flourishing human beings.”
Children need love, affirmation, attention, and acceptance…if they do not find it from my husband and I and in our home, they will surely search for it from other means! I want to be the one that touches, caresses and talks with each one of my children and provides them with the emotional stability and sense of well-being that they need to be godly and influential men and woman of God!
How have you cultivated strong friendships with your children? Or how can you begin today to do so? Why not establish monthly dates with each of your children?
It can be as simple as enjoying a cup of tea together!
Love the reminder and the encouragement – I’m off to check out the book!
I think that this is another example about how intentional parenting is. Nothing meaningful happens by “accident”. With three small kiddos I often get caught up with getting “caught up” and I know I miss precious oppurtunities to make them feel loved and special.
Today my oldest daughter was up before the other two and we were just playing and I was letting her go through her Kind. math manipulatives…she said how fun it was and I asked why. She said because she was getting to choose our activities. It was a good reminder that as healthy and productive as being structured is for a family to ward off chaos, too much structure isn’t a good thing either. It reminds me of a pastor I heard say that it’s not exactly like he loves to get on the floor and play cars with his son; but he does so in order to build relationship.
I don’t want to forget that – and I think that friendship base has to be there in order to be a source of wisdom for them as they make their own spiritual journey towards Christ. I have to admit my relationship with my mom, although good, is far from what I want for my own children and am thankful for God’s grace to show us mistakes and give us the strength and insight to make generational change.
On the subject of “best friend”, it’s funny because my oldest daughter is always calling me “best friend” and my husband too. I think that there has been kind of an “overcorrection” as far as that term goes since permissive parenting usually equates trying to befriend the child rather than parent. So we do emphasize that we are her parents first, then we can be her best friends and that when she reaches adulthood we get to be best friends only, as her accountability will be to God only rather than to God and us. But when they say that they are saying that they like us, we are fun, we are special…and that is such a good thing!
And I love that training in righteousness does not mean that you miss out on the value your child has as a person, or fulfillment that comes with having a relationship with them.
On just a practical note, we recently started a fun routine when we put the kids to bed. We ask if we can share some things that we love about them. They absolutely LOVE this and my three year old often offers SOOO many suggestions its hard to get a unique idea in first!
But it is a chance to fill their hearts with the love and acceptance of their parents and also get to reaffirm for them the godly qualities that we are seeking to cultivate in their hearts….kindness, diligence, joyfulness, etc. It also keeps me accountable for “noticing” righteous behavior since I try to use actual examples from our day of the various ways I saw them bringing glory to God. 
This was another really encouraging chapter. I always tell my husband that I want to strive to be my girls’ friend as well as their mother. Just yesterday Isabella said “Mommy, you’re my best friend.” Granted, she’s 4, but still its so sweet to hear.
My mom and I are still good friends, I’m sure we had our moments when I was a teenager 
, but I always knew I could tell my parents anything and come to them for support. Its always encouraging to see or hear of mothers who continue to be friends with their teenagers in the way that this book talks about. In working with teenagers, we’ve seen so many parents try to be their kids friends, but doing it in a way that they let their kids do, wear, go places that aren’t honoring to God. They don’t realize that their teenagers need guidance along with the friendship, they don’t need their parents trying to act like their teenage friends. Right now, my husband and I take date nights with the girls, we probably need to do this more often though to get some one on one time. Its amazing how simple things that you do with your kids will make them so happy, we play games, cook, do crafts, read books,etc. And when Daddy was out “cosmic bowling” with the teenagers, since the girls couldn’t be up that late, we instead ate dinner and had a little pajama party together. I know that I do need to remember on a daily basis to always find time to spend with them. Lately, its been so busy around here, but I can’t let my time with them slide.
(By the way, I couldn’t get to yesterdays post to comment, it showed me the adorable pumpkin patch pictures, but then I couldn’t see your menu plan or comment — was anyone else having problems? Loved the picture of Karis holding the pumpkin, she’s a cute little pumpkin herself.
Thank you for reminding me to be FRIENDS with my small son. My mom is one of my best friends ever, and I want to be a true friend to my child (hopefully “children” someday). Unfortunately I sometimes get overly preoccupied with diapers, naps, teething, and feeding. That’s where your reminder comes is handy. ; )