In a world where the dynamics of family life are evolving, the notion of being friends with your kids challenges traditional paradigms. The journey of parenthood is rife with moments of joy, laughter, and shared experiences. Still, it is also marked by the responsibilities of providing guidance, setting boundaries, and preparing our children for the challenges.

As our children grow, explore, and form their unique identities, many adults have their doubts about being friends with your kids. It’s a query that delves into the heart of the parent-child dynamic, challenging conventional notions of authority and closeness.

In this exploration, we embark on a journey to unravel the complexities of parental friendship. Is it possible to balance and maintain authority while being friends with your kids? All this while creating an environment where open communication and camaraderie thrive? Join us as we navigate the terrain of parent-child relationships, seeking insights into the delicate art of becoming not just parents but friends to our children. 

During one of her lectures, a very experienced psychologist in Mumbai said, ‘It is fine if you are friendly with your child, but being friends with them might not be a good idea.’ As kids grow older, the line between being strict or lenient starts to become very faint.

According to an article published on the Penn State University portal, a collaborative approach helps nurture close parent-child relationships. The collaborative approach is synonymous with what is known as the positive parenting approach. Positive parenting involves being nurturing and empathetic towards the needs of your child while being consistent and guiding at the same time.

Positive parenting techniques have been shown to build a loving connection between parents and their children. Using these techniques, parents can establish clear and consistent rules for their children and help children understand the concept of boundaries and the consequences of their actions. You can use the positive parenting approach while being friendly with your child.

Being empathetic towards your child. 
According to Carl Rogers, a noted American psychologist, empathy is entering the other person’s world and experiencing the other person’s world as if it were our own. Empathy encourages open parent-child conversations and allows for a deep-level understanding of each other’s feelings and needs.

Empathy involves having an emotional ear. We tend to focus on the content of the conversation instead of the emotion. Parents can communicate more effectively with their children by trying to understand the feelings behind those words.

Empathy does not mean you ignore the facts, but you first try to attend to the emotion in the background and try to push it out toward the front. Recognizing and affirming the emotion creates a natural opportunity for parent-child bonding.

Empathy also requires viewing situations or things from the child’s perspective. If you ask a teen why they prefer sharing their secrets with their friends instead of their parents, the most likely answer will be – parents don’t understand.

When you see things from your child’s point of view, you can better understand your child’s concerns. It will also help you to be more patient and efficiently support them. 

Being sensitive towards your child’s interests
Be observant of things that make your child laugh and smile, what captures their attention, what excites them, how they like to spend their time and so on. Try to get involved in things they like to do. Allow your children to express their ideas freely. Refrain from jumping to give advice or suggestions even if you think their idea will fail. Support them in the process and help them learn on their own. Listening to what they want to say is very important if you want to cultivate friendships with kids.

 Give them the freedom to choose
Some parents decide everything for their kids, whether clothes for a party or the career they should pursue. This habit will likely negatively impact children’s self-confidence and make them doubt their choices. According to one research, greater autonomy by parents led to an increase in children’s self-esteem.

Spend time with your kids
Kids often complain that their parents don’t have time for them. When parenting as a friend, keeping time aside for your kids is essential. Spend quality time with your child by doing things that you both enjoy. Also, it should not be that you make plans with kids when you have nothing else to do. This will make your child feel that they are not your priority.

Give them their space
Everybody needs ‘ me time ‘ no matter how old your child is. Stay calm if your child wants to spend time alone. Respecting their need for space is important when parenting as a friend.

Risks of being friends with your children
Parents often think parenting will be easier if they are friends with their children. Contrary to this popular belief, according to many mental professionals, being friends with your child can create role confusion. Rules and boundaries are essential for healthy childhood development, and they make children feel psychologically safe.

Loss of authority
If you lose authority as a parent, it is likely to create anxiety in children. Children need to see parents as ‘guardians’ and ‘protectors’. If this picture of parents is blurred, children lose that solid support. This is likely to make them feel frustrated and can impact the quality of relationships they have with other people in the future.

Parents must say no to their children, draw lines wherever necessary and offer advice. Children may get angry or say, ‘ You are the worst parents.’ But as a parent, you must do what is best for your child, even if it requires setting limits.

Seeking emotional support from children
As parents, we need to be emotionally available for our children. Taking care of the emotional needs of the children is an essential aspect of parenting. Sometimes, our children become the backbone of support for our emotional needs.

The excess of this role reversal is what is known as emotional parentification. Here, the child is forced to take up adult-like roles and responsibilities and play the role of parents for their parents. The child is expected to be emotionally available and support the parent.

Listening to a parent talk about their problems, offering advice to a parent, mediating between a parent and another family member, acting as a close friend to their parent and providing emotional support to a parent are some examples of emotional parentification.

When parents share information with children that they are not mature enough to handle, it puts unnecessary pressure on them. Emotional parentification may lead to stress, depression, anxiety and other mental health problems in children. Additionally, it can lead to aggression and a decline in academic scores. The impact of emotional parentification can spill into adulthood.

Sharing too much with your children
Having a dinner table conversation about your day or sharing your plans for the upcoming Sunday with your children is fine. This adds to the parent-child bonding and helps create friendships with kids.

Parents should be careful about what information they share with their children. Sharing about your married or sex life is an absolute no. Suppose you are a parent who is separated or divorced. In that case, talking to your children about the financial difficulties you are struggling with or any negative thoughts about your ex is not advisable. This creates a psychological burden for the child and strains the parent-child relationship. In a scenario like this, a parent must inform the child of the situation and healthily set the limits.

One study found that separated mothers who disclosed financial ups and downs, negativity towards the ex, and personal concerns with their daughters increased the stress levels of these girls and also created an emotional distance between the mothers and daughters.

The parent-child relationship cannot be as egalitarian as the way it happens in actual friendship. However, parents can inculcate certain aspects of friendship to build a strong bond with their children. Maintaining authority while being friends with your kids is very important.

Written by Anisha Samant
Anisha holds a Masters in Counseling Psychology and is a Coach Engagement Specialist at Crispminds providing counseling for parents as well as children having psychological/emotional issues.