Why We Need To Be A Parent And Not A Friend To Our Children

Harper’s Parenting Tips – From Infant To Toddler

00:53 – For your children’s safety
01:06 – The things that adults speak about don’t mean anything to a toddler
01:57 – They can get a lot more leniency
02:30 – Parents need to have that adult time
03:56 – Even though you’re a parent, you are still your own person

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Hi everybody. Harper Jones with Bow-Tiger, and you’re watching Saturdays with Harper. And I came across a really funny YouTube video over the last week, and I’m sure that a lot of you guys have seen it as well. If you haven’t, go on to YouTube and look up the “Friend versus Parent” speech (see video here and check out the sequel here). And it is basically a speech that a mother gives sitting at her countertop in her kitchen. And she’s pretty comedic. She’s pretty funny. But it basically goes over why you need to be a parent and why you cannot be your child’s friend. And she brings up some really, really good points. And I thought that my viewers as well would definitely benefit from some of the points that she brought up and just the whole idea of being a parent and not being a friend.

Okay. So what’s the first reason that we need to be a parent, not a friend to our child. Well, innately, we are the mother or father of our child. We’re not a friend. And we need to remain that way just for their safety. I mean, for the safety of the child to make sure that we always have their best interest at heart, we need to make sure that we remain as a parent to the child.

The other reason is a lot of things that adults speak about don’t necessarily mean anything to a toddler. There’s no relevance in a toddler’s life or a child’s life to what you’re talking about as adults. So one, you’re not gonna get great communication back if you try to use your child as somebody to talk to about these things, and two, the stress of the frustration that you might be having when you’re trying to talk about things may be or most likely will be too much for your child to handle. So we definitely, you know, don’t want to do that. We don’t wanna stress our kids out. So we’ll try to avoid it for that reason.

What’s another reason? Another reason is when…as they get older, if they see that you are a friend and you’re not a parent, when they start to get that defiance in them, which all children do at some point, it’s just a matter of how much, they’ll see a lot more…that they can get a lot more leniency with you because they don’t view you necessarily as a parent figure, an authoritative figure that they have to listen to all the time. They are more of a friend. So they can take or leave what you say or what you tell them to do because you’re not gonna do anything about it because you’re one of their friends. Don’t ever get into that situation. It may be easy to manage them when they’re three feet tall, but all of a sudden, they turn into a 10-year old, a 15-year old, and it just will wreak absolute havoc on your life if you guys do that.

For the parents out there, I’d say…I also wanna say that having an adult group of people that you can go out and enjoy some time with if you wanna do one of those wine and dine nights or an art and wine night, I love both of those by the way, it’s very important for you guys to get out there and have that adult-parent times, speak with other parents or girl friends of yours, guy friends of yours, any of that. Just get out there and enjoy some adult time. A lot of the time, especially with our first born, we tend to spend a lot of time at home, a lot of time with the child, and you’re almost talking, you know, that baby talk all the time, and your discussion is over squares and circles and triangles, and one, two, threes. It’s not over adult information. It’s not really letting your brain express what’s going on in your life, how you’re feeling. And it’s not allowing you to really enjoy a lot of things outside of your child, which of course, we enjoy a lot. Nonetheless, you guys need to have that adult time.

So try to either go out with friends. If you’ve lost touch, this is a great time to kind of reconnect or reach out to friends that you maybe had before. Try to regain a group that you can use. A lot of the mommy-toddler groups also offer mommy nights out where the parents go out, mommy-daddy nights out, too, where the parents go out without the kids. One of the parents decides to babysit, and then you all get to go out for a couple hours and just enjoy some adult time, because even though you’re a parent, you are still your own person and you still probably enjoy a lot of the things that you did prior to being a parent.

So don’t forget about those things. Sort of keep a connection with yourself and your past, and all the things that you did enjoy before children. And this will make for a happy, successful family and toddler.

Okay, guys, if you are watching this, of course, on Facebook or YouTube, I’d ask that you go check out our blog on bow-tiger.com. And as always, I’ll be back next week on Saturday for another Saturdays with Harper. We’ll see you then. Thanks.