Parent to Parent: Build Trust in Kids or Watch Them Fail

Teaching your kids about the dynamics and importance of trust in all relationships will help them all throughout the rest of life. Relationships are what make up the best part of being human. Relationships are where the magic happens in people's lives. Relationships must be treasured, valued, and tended to. Above all, the ability to find, build, and experience successful, fulfilling, and life-long relationships needs to be learned from the parents. Building trust is your kids is simple, but may not always be that easy.

Educate Your Kids About Trust By Being Honest

Trust is such an important lesson to learn for kids and as parents, it falls to you to be their first teacher. Never think for a moment that you are not teaching your children. Watch how you act and how you live because your kids are watching you. You must think of them as little video cameras recording everything you do, and I do mean everything. It's important that you be a consistent teacher when teaching trust. For example, do you habitually tell little white lies to others? Do you break little promises to people? Can others depend on you to do what you said you would do? Your kids will see right through these. If you're going to teach your kids about trust, make sure you're honest and trustworthy.

Teach Your Kids Trust by Keeping it Real

Keeping it real means letting your kids know that you are a real person and that you make mistakes because you are a real person. This does not mean you must disclose every little detail about all the mistakes you have made in your life. You don't need to confess to your kids. What you should do is use what you have learned by your mistakes and teach those to your kids. Broken relationships and mistrust are a part of everyone's past. Make sure you have dealt with these, resolved them, and then use these to teach trust to your kids. Tell them how trust is violated, how it makes the other persons feel, and what damage was done to others involved. Then teach your children to do things the right way. Teach them how to build trust and how valuable a trusting relationship can be.

Let Your Kids Know They Can Trust You

If you aren't trustworthy, how can you expect your kids to trust you with anything? Your kids are going to be exposed to so many things like drug and alcohol abuse, sex, and countless other things that can really mess up their lives if not handled properly. Knowing you can trust your kids because you have been trustworthy and taught them trust is priceless in today's world. If you trust your kids, and they trust that whatever they may do, you will always love them, then you will always have a part in their lives no matter what age they are. Let your kids know it's safe to trust you and be trusted by you.

Trust is one of the most basic and foundational aspects of life. It's vital that you teach your kids about trust, what happens when trust is violated, how to build trust, and how to be a trustworthy person. Kids are natural rule-breakers and rule-benders. They are going to be constantly testing to see if they can trust you and if you trust them. As a parent, decide to be a trusting and trustworthy person in all that you do. Build trust and keep your kids from failing in relationships for the rest of life.

Sources:

Can You Trust Your Teen?

Positive Parenting