Two of my teens are in boarding school and I hadn’t seen one in six weeks. So last week, I made a six hour trip to see my daughter. It was well worth it- we had breakfast, attended church together and it was a time to correct anything that wasn’t in place, as a mom.
How many of you have tried to resolve a problem or close a sales deal remotely and didn’t see an end in sight until you made a trip to meet the participants or parties involved? ‘Face to Face’ will always win over ‘virtual’ or ‘remote’ in parenting, long distance relationships or in resolving conflicts or in nurturing relationships.
At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals and organizations relied on remote media or video conferencing tools, such as Zoom, FaceTime, Microsoft Teams, as a way to stay in touch with their colleagues/team members, family members and loved ones. Today as the pandemic lingers, we are quickly finding out that these remote tools can never replace ‘face to face’ or ‘in person’ communication. Parenting is the same way, the more face time you get with your teen/ children, the greater the impact of your parenting on them.
Teens especially don’t like to bother parents with their issues. This means, as a parent, a conscious effort of initiating conversations with them is required. Sometimes when teens say “don’t worry about it,” It may mean… “back off now but check with me later.”
How do you make the most of the ‘face to face’ time with teens that live outside the home?
- Schedule it: Never mind that your daughter or son says “don’t worry about coming to see me.” Simply schedule the period of visit and inform them that you will be coming at a specific day and time to visit. If you can not make the visit, you could buy train, bus, or air tickets for your teen(s) to come home
- Make it memorable- bring along a friend or a partner, their dog or home made cooked meal on your visit or, perhaps, pre book tickets so that you and your teen can watch a movie or a game while together. This allows for more bonding time.
- Quality versus Quantity: it doesn’t matter if you can only spend a few hours or a day. Quality time with your teen for one day packed with memorable activities is more worthwhile than spending seven days with no fun activities.
- Be consistent. Your face to face (in-person) time with your teen shouldn’t be one off but regular. For instance, my teens’ dad and I made a rule that either of us must see them every 6 weeks. If we can’t make it, then we have to rely on close friends or family to make that trip for us.
The time we invest in our children now will yield positive results in the future. The time that we feel that our children are grown or adults isn’t the time to take a break in modeling good character or stop being dutiful parents; Parenting is a life time contract and responsibility.
Dear parents, barring real limitations that may exist, nothing (neither the pandemic that still lingers, absence of your residence’s proximity to that of our teens,’ or even push backs that you may receive from our children) should ever stop you from achieving a flourishing ‘face to face’ time or relationship with your children.