Parent or Friend: Can You Be Both to Your Child?
I was talking to one of my colleagues about our children; his are much older than mine. He had some great experience to pass along. The wisdom was that “friendship, with kids, comes later.”
What I gather from that is when a child is younger, what they need is to be parented. Parenting is teaching, guiding, and leading the child to know how to make wise choices, to be disciplined when he/she is not making a wise choice, to be shown how to love self and others, to make friends, and to evolve into a wise young person.
There are parents out there who are concerned about being their child’s friend. What is challenging is that if you are, first, a friend, then when the child is a preteen or teenager, the child will not need you as a friend. By then, he or she will have friends their own age to listen to. As teens, they need you as a parent, but they are not going to tell you that. When you become their friend first, parenting becomes difficult to establish. The child may not see you as an authority figure, and when you try to establish authority, the child will most likely question you even more. That’s not what you want.
When you are a friend first, it sends a message that you want your child to like you, to share with you, and to help you feel connected. If that’s the case, that puts a lot more pressure on the child. It is not your child’s job to help you feel good about yourself. If that is why you are your child’s friend, rather than being his/her parent, then you may need to get some counseling for yourself. You and your spouse (if married) will need to focus on a healthy relationship so the lines of parenting and friendship, even with your child, can be reassessed and altered, if need be.
When you, the parent, behave as a parent, you are laying a solid foundation for a healthy friendship with your future adult child. There will be many challenging times, and parenting is going to be difficult. Yes, you are developing a friendship with your child based on how you respond to, love, guide, lead, and, of course, have fun with him/her. But, in the beginning stages of childhood, you need to be the parent, always. Over time, the parenting will change because the child will need different amounts of parenting.
Here is an example: My son, who will be 1 year old, needs a lot of parenting. He’s mobile and will get into everything. I need to be there to make sure that he is not getting into anything that will hurt him.
As he gets older, I will still parent him to make sure he learns and makes wise choices, but as he gets older, I will have him make more decisions on his own. When he can dress himself, I will still help him but will allow him to make decisions on what he wants to wear. If he does not want to wear a seatbelt, I will of course enforce that he wears one because that is the law. Parenting changes when the child is able to make his own decisions; but you will still need to be there to see that he is making healthy decisions. If he does not make the best decision, then he also needs to learn that he will have a consequence for that decision.
As you parent, you are laying a foundation for a friendship later on with your adult child. You are still his or her parent, but when the child is 18+, it is more of a friendship with your adult child, and adult children will seek out parenting advice when they need it. At that stage, you can ask if they want you to speak as a parent or as a friend.
Think on this: Your child will have plenty of friends, but only one parent (two, of course, if you are married).