5 Ways Millennial Parents Can Pretty Much Guarantee Their Kids Will Never Go No-Contact
Maintain life-long contact by keeping tuned into your kids.
Peopleimages.com - YuriArcurs | Canva In this emotional world, an increasingly common term to define this bonding or connectedness is attunement. That means responding to your child’s emotional needs, which results in the child’s sense of being understood and valued. Building that connection now is a great way young parents, like Millennials or older Gen Z, can insure their kids won't cut them off later in life and learn from the mistakes of generations past.
The capability to attune differs on the personality and temperament of children, and how easy or difficult it is for us to relate to them, given our personality traits. It's not always easy, but it's worth it.
How can you increase attunement and connect with your children in a way to make sure your kids never go no-contact with you? When we consider an attachment perspective, it all starts with safety in the home with primary caretakers.
Here are 5 of the best ways to make sure your kids never go no-contact with you
1. Accept your child's temperament
Each child is born with a certain temperament which is developed by an early age. Most kids are classified into one of four categories:
- Easygoing
- Challenging
- "Slow-to-warm-up" kids
- Mixed temperament kids
What matters is how well parents adjust to their children’s personalities if parents and children have mismatched temperaments, or if both have difficult temperaments. Accepting a child for who they are will help them feel secure and okay with their personality and identity.
Parenting coach Mia Von Scha brought it down to a question, "Every time you ask a question, your mind goes seeking the answers and in so doing, shapes your reality. To that end, we often worry about the details of our children’s lives, but we seldom stop to focus on the bigger picture. There is one parental duty that we all share, though, and it can be encapsulated with this one, big question: Am I doing enough to empower my child?"
2. Invest in time with your children
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Most parents make a distinction between quality time and quantity time. What this can translate into is "I don’t have much time for my children, but when I do, I want us to have fun together."
To have quality time with kids, parents have to spend a lot of ordinary time with them. This time is the kind that develops trust, learns their love language, and truly understands their ways.
Quality moments require many hours of little moments: Talking about your children’s day, having conversations, reading, and telling stories. Kids need both high-quality and high-quantity time. They need you in healthy doses!
3. Deliberately touch your kids every day
This can mean anything from high-fives and wrestling matches to stroking their hair, squeezing their hands, and giving goodnight kisses. Those with babies should hold them gently and lovingly, not just functionally.
Within the safety and warmth of their arms, children learn that relationships are nurturing and secure. This can be challenging as a parent if you have an avoidant attachment style. Meanwhile, parents who have an ambivalent attachment style need to monitor how much their children are touched.
You need to pay attention to your children’s cues and adjust your behavior, appropriately. It's important to know which type of touch feels good to your children, and then respond in that way every chance you get.
This may change as they get older, so don’t take it personally if they are not as receptive — just be willing to give an affirming touch when you can.
Psychotherapist Chamin Ajjan explained the benefits of hugs for kids, "There are several benefits to hugging your child including relieving stress, elevating both of your moods, boosting their self-esteem, building trust, and reinforcing a sense of safety. Hugging helps develop confident and well-adjusted little beings. What a gift to give them! Now that’s love!"
4. Teach your children important values and life lessons
This includes teaching your children the significant lesson of learning how to handle negative emotions by not ignoring them or pushing them aside.
When some parents use messages such as, "Just get over it," and, "You shouldn’t feel that way," this can be harmful and ineffective, especially as they get older.
Instead, you will need to set limits on how your children behave when they are upset and teach them ways to manage feelings and solve problems. When you do this, you create a secure base from which children can deal with negative emotions, as suggested by the APA.
Also, keep in mind that one of the best ways we can teach our children is by having them see us live out the principles and guidelines we are sharing with them. Remember: they are constantly watching and learning from us.
5. Demonstrate tenacity
When we stick to something and remain persistent in the face of stress, this is tenacity. Tenacity helps create a resilient family structure, one that generates warmth with clear limits and realistic and constructive boundaries.
An article in the Environmental Psychology Journal suggested when families maintain commitments to setting healthy boundaries and fostering open communication, this can help create a healthy and stable environment. It also lets them know you are not going to give up on them even in challenging times, which brings safety and security.
When trying to reconnect with children, there can be several hurdles to overcome. So, parents need to put on their patience hat and have self-awareness of the struggles that can be triggered in their interactions with their children.
Parents can once again find joy in their lives after reconnecting with their children and observing their growth and development in the family.
Here are the 5 principles you can employ during this time of re-bonding and rebuilding the relationship with your children
1. Foster uniqueness
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Every family is filled with individuals who are, though related, much different than the others.
A huge mistake is to think you can raise and relate to each child in the very same way. This can potentially build resentment between the children.
2. Be careful with rigidness in enforcing household rules
Parents can do a disservice to their children when they have too many rules.
Trust is the key to building healthy family relationships. Parents need to articulate their expectations well and follow this up with consistent, fair consequences.
3. Create rituals of togetherness
Embrace the benefits of families eating together several times a week, having meetings where each member can have a say, and outings where a son or a daughter has alone time with a parent — not as a punitive event, but a fun time where you laugh and learn more about one another.
4. Helping them develop their legacy
In helping them develop as a person, it's important to educate children on the highs and lows of our extended relationships.
You can talk to them about deceased family members, visit gravesites and childhood homesteads, and share memories of your upbringing, and the good and bad lessons you learned along the way.
When you're vulnerable with your child, it will help them to open up and relate in real ways.
5. Model appropriate use of words in your communication
Parents can devastate or hinder reconnection by using ill-conceived language during times of frustration such as, "You always..." or, "You never..." which can really destroy their confidence in bonding with you and potentially in other important relationships.
It's important they hear words like, "I love you," "You are valued and special," "Thank you," and, "Everything is going to be okay," regularly.
Also, be sure to share that you love them just for who they are and be specific in your compliments. If you build love in your children, they will not lack self-confidence.
Janie Lacy is a licensed mental health counselor and owner of Life Counseling Solutions (LCS), which specializes in helping men and women achieve happier, healthier relationships.
Daniel Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist and best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness.