Most Important Parenting Tip: Connect With Your Partner

This post is specifically for parents that are in a partnership and not single parents. However, you could apply a lot of this to yourself as a form of self care if you are a single parent.

Working on your connection with your partner is one of the most overlooked parts of life when you become a parent. You're busy balancing all aspects of life and this is one of the most common areas that begins to lack. It also just happens to be one of the most important parts of being a parent.

As your children get older, they are learning through observation, as we have spoken about several times on this page before.

This includes your romantic relationships.

Your kids are learning all about romantic relationships through observation of their parents and how their parents interact with one another. They're watching how affectionate you are with one another, they observe how healthy the relationship is and that is what they base relationships on as they age. When they start dating, they will often find partnerships that mimic their parents relationship. This is just natural unless they are aware and are consciously working towards changing something.

This is why working on your connection in your partnership is so important for your kids and one of the most important parenting tips we can give.

So, how can you do it? How can you prioritize this connection?

The answer is: you must work on it daily.

Even if you take 10 minutes every day to consciously connect with your partner, this can make all the difference in the world.

Connecting throughout the day by sending text messages and being kind and compassionate with one another is extremely important.

Having a night out together is obviously a great idea, but not always feasible for everyone. We never suggest to just wait for a "date night" to connect.

It's an everyday type of thing.

Connecting everyday through watching a show together can even be enough. Allow your children to observe you being affectionate with one another as well as kind and considerate.

Attend couples therapy if you need to. Read books on relationships if you feel you can.

Also, being aware of how you communicate with your partner in front of your children is so imperative. If you both are nitpicking at each other or criticizing each other constantly or openly, your children are smart and will definitely pick up on that.

Obviously nothing is perfect and there will be moments of tension or arguments that your children will pick up on, but what is most important is how you repair afterwards.

Don't just brush things under the rug and pretend everything is fine. Have difficult conversations with your partner and your children. Repair not only the relationship with your partner after a disagreement, but also repair the relationship with your children after, if they have witnessed something.

Arguments happen but repair happens as well and it's really good to make that very obvious to your children.

Your children do not need a perfect family environment by any means to grow up healthy and happy. Nothing is perfect. In fact, it's very common that families that look perfect on the outside are the ones that can be the most dysfunctional.

So if your children happen to catch your partner and you in an argument, don't panic this happens. This is a part of life and your children need to understand that as well. As we said before, repairing in front of your children is the most important thing for them to see.

So take time to think of creative and fun ways you can connect with your partner on a regular basis, based on your unique connection, interests and relationship!