As a self-starting professional, entrepreneurial growth exacts a heavy toll on your available time – a tough balance to manage when you have a family at home. It is all-too-easy to find that pursuing professional growth has whisked you away from family, and personal growth with your children. With your kids approaching adolescence, it can seem as if they’re getting old enough to handle themselves more independently – but they still need nurturing, and without your direction could find themselves going off the deep end.
But there is a way to do both. By simply putting a little time aside each week with the purpose of spending it with your children, you can give them the parental ear they still need and bolster a mature relationship with them as they continue to grow. What follow are some simple suggestions for approaches and activities you can try with your kids, in order to build a positive relationship even during times of intense professional demand.
Teach Them How to Drive
Driving is a life skill that can hugely benefit your children going into adulthood, and an excellent opportunity for bonding. Sorting out learner driver insurance and scheduling some time each week to head out to a quiet industrial estate or car park is a brilliant way to engage with your children. With a simple and clear goal in mind for all concerned, this activity can be an incredibly focusing one – and by that same virtue, can provide a safe space in which to explore other aspects of your relationship.
Cook Together
In a similar vein, setting out to cook regular meals together can be a unifying experience, but all the more impactful by virtue of its regularity. In scheduling one or two nights a week to cook with your kids, you are making a promise to be present that evening, away from your work and cooking and eating with them. This can be revolutionary to your relationship, and provide valuable time for catching up – as well as a golden opportunity to teach life skills for their future independence.
Establish Trust
Usually, the burden is on the parent to demonstrate that their children can trust them. You are their foundation and guiding light all at the same time, especially through the tumult of early adolescence. But less explored is the other side of the coin, which becomes all the more prescient as your kids get older: your trust in them.
Where spending a lot of time growing your business may have removed you from their lives a little, this can be made a positive experience; by letting it be known to your children that you trust them, their time away from you can become a learning experience in maturity and growth.
