A to Z of Bonding with Your Child

Bonding with a child begins even before their birth. Parents bond with their kids by holding their tiny hands, looking into their gleam eyes, making skin to skin contact, talking to them indistinguishably still making them smile and singing a lullaby for them at nights. As the child gets older, a parent’s effort at building the bond continues in order to cement a strong lifelong connection. Of course, the methods of bonding change considerably.

When a parent engages with their child, it allows them to enter the child’s world. That’s when they can make the bond strongest, being one of them. Good bonding between parent and child is reflected by many benefits. This includes better emotional and social development of the child, better academic development and even lesser risk of obesity than others. Just as a child’s first learning at school begins with ABCD…I have tried summarizing the bonding between the parent and child in an AtoZ fashion. Let’s take a look at the A to Z of Bonding with a Child:

It appears that your child is hurt and in fear, showing up some unusual behavior for the last few days. Don’t make the child more scared by asking about the state of child time and time again. Let the child decide the perfect time to come to you and talk about the same.

Skepticism is one thing that we humans practice a lot without even realizing the same. Stop doubting and start believing in your child and his doings. The child sees a reflection of you in him/her and wants you as a parent to trust their instinct sometimes. Show that trust and belief in your child to earn a rewarding bonding between the two of you.

Please for God sake don’t ask your child to behave like someone else’s or score like some other child in an exam or talk in English like a neighbor’s child does. Children hate to be compared with their habits. And, why they should not be? Each child is unique just as any grown-up individual like us with certain features that do not match with anybody. Shouldn’t we be proud of the same instead of trying to blend in someone else’s persona? Each child is unique and must be treated uniquely.

It is mostly observed that parents involve their children with some TV cartoons or funny videos on mobile phones while they eat food. Why eating which is such an important phenomenon bypassed by the addition of an activity which is distracting. Make dinner time special with your child. Dinner time should be family time. Where every family member sits together, eats and cherishes the day spend in their individual lives. You may not like the thought of it now, but trust me you’ll remember it for your lifetime.

Home is a child’s first school and parents are their first teachers. Become the best teacher ever they shall meet in life. A child is so raw who does not know the difficulty of performing anything in life. It is us the parents who make them scared of trying new things fearing any form of damage to the child’s body. Free up the child’s soul and encourage in every walk of their lives to try and excel in everything they do. Avoid inspecting their each and every move. Instead, assure them that they can rely on you for every type of support. Monitor their activities for they do not do anything that may hurt them or anyone else. But don’t inspect in their lives all the time.

I have a memory of my own Family Time, wherein I used to become the person who is just answering everyone’s questions in a gathering. I firmly believe this should not be the case. Rather child must be involved in the conversation. Fun outings, watching movies together, playing football or such games bring you as a family together in a fun way. If the relation of parents and children starts holding the base of questions and answers only, it goes rough and bitter by the time. Try to avoid that.

Gifting is a gesture of giving and connecting. It is a process in which you think of the child’s requirements for gifting something appropriate to his liking. This process brings you close to the child’s thought and connects you closely with them. The child, in turn, learns two things from this process. Firstly, that my parents are thinking of me in my particular interest and whenever I need something they’re the people I can look up to. Secondly, a child learns the art of receiving joy by gifting someone.

While planning your holiday ask for your children’s wish as to what would they want to explore? Present a few options before them to choose from an array of your shortlisted destinations. This will help you notice your child’s liking and disliking for say beaches or mountains, hill stations covered with snow or greenery all around etc. Who doesn’t like being treated as important and valued? Same goes with the tiny kids as well. When the children travel to the places that they have chosen for themselves, they feel connected and important.

Ask your child to perform the daily basic household chores themselves. This is not to lessen your burden but to make them independent. When your child makes his own bed, folds his clothes lying in the room and keeps nicely in the cupboard, keeps the used plates and other utensils from dining to sink or even washes them, and helps you in cleaning the house or gardening etc. He’s learning the life skills. Making the child independent is what he’ll value you for the rest of his life.

Try joining in the seemingly stupid talks of kids. They’re actually fun sometimes. You’ll forget all your worries after seeing how happy they are for no reason. They teach us the very fundamental fact of life that worrying over something is not going to let us live a happy life. Neither worrying is going to lessen the cause of worry. Instead, enjoy each and every moment of life just as a small child does. On the contrary, once a parent joins in the conversation of the child, the child’s connection with the parent strengthens.

As the child grows, their unique personality develops over time. Your child is your own blood and soul, and connecting with your own soul is one of the topmost joys on this planet!

When the child is small and is in front of you all the time you know each and every activity done by the child. As the child grows, meets new people, gets influenced by many people and tries to fit into this big world lot many traits change in the child. As a parent, we have to be well aware of the child’s mindset at each points to cater well to their needs.

Have you ever considered, what is the essence of a child’s giggling or laughter? It’s the purity of their heart and worries free smile that they spread across. When you laugh out loud with your child, you become worry-free in that moment and just spend the best of times together. Keep your stress and worry aside when it comes to laughing out loud with your child. It teaches your child also how to be the actual cool via mind and soul.

A family is the first institution of interaction for the children and parents are their first teachers. A child grows with the learning of GOOD & BAD from the parents first. Sometimes after committing the mistakes and sometimes seeing others commit so. The only thing of importance is that as a parent we must not scold them for their mistakes. In fact, we should explain to them why the particular doing was wrong and what not to be done further to avoid such mistakes in the future. I’m a firm believer in making mistakes and learning from them. Implementing the learning and making mistakes in some other way and learning again…the learning curve is endless. A child must be assured for they can make mistakes. But when taught about the learnings of the mistakes, they must not repeat them again or it becomes a habit that too a bad one.

Okay so, here we reach the midway to our A to Z parenting scan today. I hope I have made sense to each letter carried out above. I know there can be no hard and fast ruling to do the parenting right. But all we can do is try the different nits & grits and evolve day by day as a parent.

Now, I’m signing off. Stay Tuned for the other half of the story from N to Z.

Till Then, Happy Parenting.

With Love!

Khushboo

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