“My job keeps me so busy that I feel like I have no clue what is going on in my daughter’s life.  How can I reconnect with her to feel like I know who she is anymore?”

As parents we have to guard ourselves from allowing the busyness of life to keep us from knowing our children.  Our kids thrive off of gaining positive attention from us and we often need to be creative in how we go about learning about our children’s daily activities.  One thing that has proven to be an invaluable tool time and time again is the notion of Performance Night.

Take one evening a week to set aside time for everyone in your family to demonstrate what they have been working on throughout the week.  It can be something as simple as playing a song they’ve been working on in their music class or perhaps reading the most recent assignment from their literature book.

Be sure not to leave all the weight on their shoulders though.  Because we are busy parents, our kids often feel the same way about us—that they don’t know who we are anymore.  During Performance Night, make the effort to share something with your children that you’ve been working on throughout the week as well.  Not only will this take your child off the hot seat, but it will also help them feel like they’ve gotten to know something about you that they’ve missed out on for the past week.

This is the 3rd week of our new weekly parenting blog we’re calling The Growing Parent. To see other posts, click on “The Growing Parent” in the menu on the right.

If you have parenting questions you’d like us to answer, feel free to ask them by commenting below.

Nick Hersey, LAMFT, LAPC

nhersey@ GROWcounseling.com