ChildOne :: An Early Childhood Development Initiative

Valuable relationships in your child’s life can teach or instill the following:

Stability
Routine
Sharing
Dependence and independence
Acceptance
Loyalty
Lesson learning
Self esteem
Discipline

Peer Relationships

Peer relationships are the relationships that occur between your child and other children of their general age group. This can include your child’s friends, acquaintances, or those that are not as friendly. Teaching your child how to play well with others, share, communicate, and also deal with conflict in positive, nonviolent ways.

Family Relationships

Family relationships are where a child develops core values and the most basic understanding of the world and people around them. Children will mimic the behaviors of the people around them. Therefore, it is important for you to live as a positive role model as well as making sure that other people who have relationships of any kind with your child do the same.

Family can’t be defined as a mother, father, and child. There are many different combinations of people that can makeup a family. It is just as important to explain to your child what a family is and that all different types of families are acceptable as “normal”. Talk to your child about friends who have different types of families and the benefits of the variation in family structure.

Resources

Click here to learn about families and relationships, as well as many other child and parent dynamics, from the American Psychological Association.

Click here to access skills and knowledge to enrich family life from the National Council on Family Relations.

Click here to access information on healthy relationships for teens from the Center for Young Women’s Health.

Click here to access information for singles, young adults, non-married parents, pre-marital couples, stepfamilies and married couples from the Texas Healthy Marriage and Relationship Initiative.

Click here to learn about the work of the Texas Council on Family Violence.

Click here to access information on strengthening family relationships from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Family Science division.