Do you want to be the kind of parent whom your kids turn to when they have a problem? You want them to come to you with their fears, with their secrets, with their dilemmas, don’t you? Well, then you better make yourself the kind of parent who has earned that honor, who has earned that respect. Because it’s a privilege and not a right. Need proof? Think about your own parents and how many things you kept from them. Even more, why you kept those things from them.
Sure, some things we hide because we know it’s stuff we’re not supposed to be doing. But a lot of it is stuff we could have used their advice on, that we ached to connect over—yet we knew we couldn’t. They would rush to judgment. They wouldn’t let us explain. It would trigger their anxiety or their temper or their moralizing reminders. And we already had enough problems! You want them to come to you? You want to help them? Then show them you’re worthy of their trust. Teach them that reaching out is worth doing. Teach them that they’ll get a fair hearing. Prove to them that you make things better, not worse.