Should a parent cultivate friendship with their child?
Bonding. Attachment parenting. Friendship with my kids.
In the last years, these words became a definition of something that is actually defined in a completely wrong way. The definition is related as a direct relationship with spoiled children that do not respect any authority, kids who believe that the whole world revolves only around them. That those parents aren’t capable of setting any boundaries, trying desperately to be buddies with their children, neglecting their actual task of raising them.

Parents that truly raise their children that way, did not understand anything about bonding, attachment parenting and friendship with their own kids.
Like I mentioned in this article, humans are in a desperate need of orientation, connection and belonging.
Every human is desperately in need of being loved and known for whom they truly are.
Therefore, this need is deeply rooted – in every human being, including your kids. You as parents are the very best people to meet that need.
Bonding with your child, having a child that is attached to you, a child that trusts you like it would trust a close friend will make you “capable parents”. For a child to be open to being parented by an adult, it must be actively attaching to that adult, wanting contact and closeness with him.
Specifically, this means, for you to truly be able to parent your child, it must be actively attaching to you. We all know that for a teenager who doesn’t want to be parented from you, every effort is in vain. It strikes me how many parents of four-five year old kids are completely lost in how to parent, because the child’s responses are hostile, rejecting the parental authority.
These children – it doesn’t matter if they are 4 or 14 years old – will make you appear like a failure as parent.
Does that mean you don’t love your child? I am sure you do.
Does that mean you don’t have the skills to raise a child? You surely do.
However, let me suggest something:
Knowing that a child – like every human being – has this deep need of bonding, attachment, being known for whom they truly are and being loved for being themselves… Don’t you think if you as a parent can give that to a child – that child will be eager to keep that relationship with you?
I see that with my own children. The more they are attached to me (regardless of their age), the more easily they are to lead. The more they are attached to me, the more they want to obey, to keep that loving, happy and intimate relationship we have. In times when I am preoccupied with other things that almost eat up this capacity of mine to have closeness, they are much more challenging and difficult to lead and I get irritated or impatient with them more quickly.
A parent once said:
“If you don’t understand your child, you can’t stand your child.“
I find this sentence to be very true.
The more I understand my child – and this is even true for people around me in general – the easier it is to deal with their shortcomings, the easier it is to deal with the times they are more tiring or difficult to get along for any reason.

That’s the reason why we are always looking to understand how we can work on that attachment This is different in every stage of life and that’s why we are always thinking of ways we can reach out to our children, in order that their need of belonging, attachment and orientation are met on a daily basis.
Here we go for a very brief summary of the next article:
Six ways of attaching:
- Sense
- Sameness
- Belonging and Loyalty
- Significance
- Feeling
- Being known.
In the next article I will go deeper into six ways of attaching, each of them provides a clue to the behaviour of our children – and often, to our own behaviour as well.Here we go for a very brief summary of the next article: that doesn’t mean that we are pals that are on the same level of authority, nor does it mean that I share every detail of my life with the child.you love me
The content from this article are from the author (Jeanne from familythatmatters) and from the Book “Hold on to your kids”, written by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate, Chapter 1 and 2
The content from this article are from the author (Jeanne from familythatmatters) and from the Book “Hold on to your kids”, written by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate, Chapter 1 and 2
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