Gihan, a single mother of a now 21-year-old daughter, pats the precious golden necklace adorning her neck that her daughter bought her on Mothers' Day as she relates her happy parenting story. “We do have a very special relationship,” Gihan says with a smile. “We are close friends. She shares all her feelings and thoughts with me, and although she spends most of her time at college and with friends, as all girls her age do, she insists on sparing time for a special outing for the two of us together.” Gihan's daughter, Farah, has always been the top of class at school and college, and now she is graduating from the faculty of engineering at the American University in Cairo. She is also the coach of a handball team at the club and is about to get engaged to one of her colleagues at college. Gihan did not follow a particular parenting strategy to nurture such a positive relationship with her daughter or to help make her daughter become such a success. All Gihan can say is that she was a dedicated mother and has been very keen on having a special bond with her daughter since her infanthood. Recent studies indeed suggest that children who grow up in a supportive environment and who have a good relationship with their parents are far more likely to be successful in later life, have fewer behavioural problems and maintain a good bond with their parents when they are adults. “Having a good relationship with your children helps their self-esteem and their social skills,” write experts at WebMD.com, a US Website. “A child whose parents show they care by spending time with him/her and by taking an interest in his/her life knows that they matter. They grow up to be strong and confident as a result of good parenting.” A recent study published in the UK Guardian newspaper similarly highlighted the importance of “secure early bonding” as making “the difference between the baby that grows up a secure, emotionally capable adult, and a baby that will become a depressive, anxious child, who will not cope well with life's ups and downs.” The study also suggested that “children who had been more securely attached to their mothers, now grown, did better at resolving relationship conflicts, recovering from those conflicts and enjoying stable, satisfying ties with their romantic partners.” In his new book, The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting, US author Laurence Steinberg also explains how “good parenting helps foster empathy, honesty, self-reliance, self-control, kindness, cooperation, and cheerfulness.” “It also promotes intellectual curiosity, motivation, and desire to achieve. It helps protect children from developing anxiety, depression, eating disorders, anti-social behaviour, and alcohol and drug abuse,” Steinberg told WebMD. Many experts agree that parents who establish strong and healthy relationships with their children earlier in life also need less discipline at home. Steinberg, for one, would advise “parents who want their children to be more cooperative” to channel the wealth of negative energy consumed in correcting their children to focus on improving their relationships with their children and encouraging their positive behaviour. Ruby Natale, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Miami Medical School in the US, agrees that parents who have a good relationship with their children are likely to face fewer problems with children who do not listen to them. “Think how you relate to other adults,” she told WebMed. “If you have a good relationship with them, you tend to trust them more, listen to their opinions, and agree with them.” Experts agree that children can be fragile at a young age, and in some cases even a little smack or verbal sharpness can leave a deep scar that can cause challenges later. Such challenges commonly start in the teenage years, when those who have been smacked in childhood can start showing symptoms of withdrawal (usually in the case of girls), or indulge in angry behaviour (usually in the case of boys). However, it is at the age of 25 that the mind is more fully developed, and this is precisely when the impact of negative childhood discipline starts to show. Harsh discipline may result in an ungrateful attitude or resentment towards parents in an adult's early 30s, an age when people tend to evaluate their childhoods, reassessing their parents' upbringing and feeling their impact on them. It is for this reason that educational consultant Hanan Sabry, formerly a long-term resident of the United States where she studied child behavioural and cognitive development as part of her Masters in teaching, advises parents in Egypt to use a “love and logic approach” to their children. The approach largely depends on building a strong and healthy parent-child relationship, involving logic even in the case of punishment and ultimately letting children do the right thing because they want to and not because they are afraid not to. This approach, according to Sabry, largely depends on “spending quality time with the children, giving them undivided attention and playing, talking, reasoning, listening, respecting and responding to their needs.” This quality time should also include learning moments that introduce logic to train the mind early to understand things properly. Questions like, “do you think this is the right thing to do?” and, “why do you think it is right?” can be helpful tools in this direction, according to Sabry. “An hour of quality time a day is enough to raise a happy and healthy child to become a happy and responsible adult,” Sabry insists. It helps to maintain parent-child dialogue and to preserve the relationship between parents and children during the teenage years when children can close themselves off and create a separate world among their friends. Experts at WebMD could not agree more. “It isn't enough that we tell our children we love them. We need to put our love into action every day for them to feel it. And when we do that our kids need a lot less discipline,” they say. The following are some tips on how to build a strong bond with your children START EARLY: Experts agree that early bonding with newborns results in a close parent-child connection throughout life. “For instance, research has shown that fathers who take a week or more off work when their babies are born have a closer relationship with their child at every stage, including as teens and college students,” according to WebMD. Studies also suggest that a first skin-to-skin touch when a mother hugs her baby and breastfeeds him the moment he is born may help foster a strong mother-child relationship throughout that child's life. Research similarly suggests that newborns whose basic needs are attended to by a loving parent and are not left to scream until they take refuge in sleep know the world is a good and secure place to live in and build strong bonds with their parents. GIVE PRIORITY TO QUALITY TIME WITH YOUR CHILD: A recent study published on WebMD says that “90 per cent of people on their deathbeds say their biggest regret is that they didn't get closer to the people in their lives. And almost all parents whose children are grown up say they wish they had spent more time with their kids.” BUILD MUTUAL RESPECT AND TRUST: Trust begins in infancy when your baby learns whether she can depend on you to pick her up when she needs it and when you fulfill your promises to play with her and pick her up on time during early childhood. Later in life, when your child grows into her teens, trust means “never walking away from the relationship in frustration, because you trust that she needs you and that you will find a way to work things out,” according to experts at WebMD. ENCOURAGE POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR AND CRITICISE LESS: “If most of what comes out of your mouth is correction or criticism, your children won't feel good about themselves, and they won't feel like you're their ally,” advise experts at WebMD. GRAB EVERY INTERACTION AS A CHANCE TO STRENGTHEN BONDS: Everything from shopping to playing and doing homework matter. Even bedtime battles can be turned into a great chance for bonding by reading stories together, sharing memories and talking about daytime events. GIVE UNDIVIDED ATTENTION AND BE A GOOD LISTENER: This should start early. Even a preschooler's chat about his friends in nursery should be attended to as it will both teach you something about your child and teach your child that he can share his thoughts with you when he becomes a teen. PUT YOURSESLF IN THEIR BOOTS AND RESPECT THEIR FEELINGS.
