"Family Talk Wednesday" Your Child Is Not Your “Friend”

There is a purely emotional part of the parent/child relationship that is built on affection and esteem. Parents and children are genetically geared to love each other, and it’s a beautiful thing to behold.

But there’s a stage where parenting becomes a functional role, not just an emotional role. With infants, the emotional role shows when a mother demonstrates her love by holding, talking and singing to the child. The functional role involves feeding, changing diapers and bathing the baby. One without the other is damaging for the child. So if she just loved that child but didn’t do the responsible functional things, that child would be at great risk and would be harmed and neglected. If she just took care of the functional things and didn’t show that child any love, it would have long term effects on the child’s emotional development. The emotional and functional parenting roles go hand in hand. It’s not healthy to emphasize one at the cost of the other.

I think as kids grow older, the parent’s role becomes more functional and less emotional, which is a hard lesson for parents who want to be their child’s “best friend.” As parents, they may feel those emotions inside, but they really have to do more for their child functionally, and set limits with the child. Limit setting is a very healthy function. It’s how kids learn to figure out what’s safe and what’s not safe. What’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate. The functional role changes for parents as the child grows. With a one-year-old, it involves changing diapers. With an eight-year-old, the functional role involves getting homework done. With a fifteen-year-old, it involves enforcing a responsible curfew.