Maybe it’s a generational thing. While growing up, I often heard the following: Your kids aren’t your friends. Be distant. Keep a healthy space between your kids and you. They won’t respect you if they think you’re their friend.
This teaching belies two untruths. One is that an authority must be a remote figure issuing commands. I’m a graduate student who is studying organizational leadership at Creighton University. I am also a former Air Force non-commissioned officer. My lived and academic experiences have taught me that authoritarian — or “command and control” — leadership develops poor bonds between leader and follower. That also applies to parent and child.
The second untruth is that friendship doesn’t involve respect. Friendship is all about respect. That and trust are what make friendships.
I think what parents fear is not being respected or obeyed. The problem with that is, well, your kids aren’t born knowing how to do either of those things. It’s ludicrous to expect them to have an ability that isn’t there. It’s even worse to command a behavior you don’t role model yourself.
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Setting “respect” as a parenting goal is one of the worst you could choose. This is because, as my knowledge and experiences taught me, respect is both learned and earned.
One of the best and most healthy ways people learn and earn respect is through friendship. Forming a relationship with another human being involves learning each other’s boundaries. We learn what we each like and dislike. We learn to say, “thank you” but also, “no thank you,” which is just as important.
We fight with our friends, and then we learn how to resolve a conflict because we want to keep being friends. This means we learn how to communicate better. When you learn that your friend has buttons you ought not to push, then you learn to respect their boundaries. When you explore why your friend has those hot buttons, you dive into each other’s emotional experiences. This helps us learn empathy.
Finally, we love our friends. We celebrate their birthdays, toast at their weddings and mourn their deaths. We call them “uncle” or “auntie” in front of our kids. We say things like, “They’re like family.”
In case you don’t see the emerging point here, it’s not only OK to be friends with your kids — you should befriend them. A friend listens and validates. A friend is there when somebody feels down and out. A friend offers to help bear the weight of a burden. A friend greets you, cheers your accomplishments, meets you for lunch, brings you soup when you’re ill, packs an extra set of wet wipes for the trip and sends a card “just because.” Friends share some interests and express support for differing interests. A friend is there, through thick and thin.
When you become one of your child’s friends, you are setting them up to have more and more throughout life. You’re teaching them how to be a loving and functional human being.
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Jack Pryor is an Air Force veteran, a Creighton Master's student in Organizational Leadership, and a father of one daughter. Jack's writing has been published in an anthology and a literary magazine. He posts frequently on Medium, and more of his work can be found at jackrainierpryor.medium.com.