The Key to Building Your Child's Trust
Paternal Precept #002
It happens to us all.
We’ve had a tough day at work. Money is tight and bills are due. A fight with your partner, the car is acting up, or even something as simple as a headache.
Any number of things might cause us to lose patience with our kids. Everyone does it. Inside every parenting book, you’ll find at least one confession from the author—usually a parenting “expert”—that they, too, yell at their kids occasionally.
Each time we lose our patience, we risk losing our children’s trust. But the good news is, if we do blow up, all is not lost. As Dr. Becky Kennedy outlines in her book Good Inside, the key is repair.
“Our parenting doesn’t have to be defined by our moments of struggle,” she writes. “It should be defined by whether or not we connect with our kids after the struggle, and whether we explore how those moments felt to them and work to repair the rupture in the relationship.”
It’s never too early—or too late—to repair a strain in our relationship with our children. Apologize, explain, and reconnect. You will falter, but you don’t have to fail. A father’s patience is tested daily. A child’s trust is built the same way.
Don’t lose trust. Repair.
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