Building Trust and Communication with Your Child

Does Your Child Trust You

My husband and I had some long talks with our boys last night. One thing that came up was the fact that both my husband and I require the boys to check in with us when they are outside playing. We live in a small neighborhood and there are many boys that they play with often. However, the rule is if they are playing at home and then decide to go to someone’s house they need to let us know. Same thing when they are outside, they are simply supposed to check in so we know where they are. This talk was about building trust and communication with our children.

My youngest son felt that we did not trust him and that this was the reason for the constant checking in. So it dawned on me that sometimes we assume that our children understand why we do the things we do.

Building Trust and Communication with Your Child

I first explained to them that I do trust him. I trust that he is going to go where he says he is going to go. I trust that he will act well while he is away. I trust that he is having fun but following our rules. We don’t ask him to check in because we do not trust him, there is a reason for the rules that parents set.

Why Parents Set Rules

When building trust and communication with your child you must not only set the rules, you should explain why those rules are in place. This extra effort helps your child understand why there is a rule in place instead of seeing it as a distrusting action, or a way to control them.

• My explanation for a check-in rule: It is important that we know where he is in case we need to get a hold of him.
• I shared an example: My example to him was this: “What if I were home with your sister and you were outside playing and something happened to her and I needed to leave the house immediately?”. If you told me you were at Kid A’s house and I went there and you were not there I would have to search the neighborhood for you wasting much-needed time.

Explain that Adults Follow The Same Rules Too

It is important that another key element to building trust and communication with your children is to show them that rules are not just for children, adults also follow rules and for good reasons. He was quite surprised to hear that as adults we also check-in with each other and shared another example. “Dad goes to work and is at home every day at 6:30. One day he has a meeting and has to stay after work. If he didn’t tell me he had this meeting don’t you think I would worry about where he is?”

I think my son was quite surprised to see it in that light, that our asking him to check in and tell us where he is, is not because we don’t trust him but because we care about him and want to know that he is alright. I hope that this was a step to building trust and communication with my child and I encourage you to do the same.