Your Child's Emotional Bank Account

Recently I attended a parenting seminar where the lecturer questioned a room full of parents, “What is the single most difficult aspect of raising children?”

The most memorable response drew a lots of laughter; “It’s the first twenty-five years.”

Indeed, there are numerous challenges we parents face from the toddler times through their teenage years, and beyond!

A parenting tip to gain cooperation and good conduct is to make frequent deposits into our children’s emotional bank account.

What’s an emotional bank account? Think of it this way: When your checking account is overdrawn, it is hard for you to give away money. Similarly, people have emotional bank accounts that must be sufficiently full for them to give away- not money, but time, personal responsibility, and good behavior.

Adding regular “deposits” in your chid's emotional bank account is smart investing in their future, so they will feel secure in “withdrawing” or giving back to you in the form of respect and proper obedience of your rules.

A child who feels that he is running a “negative balance” will gain pleasure from making Mom or Dad get angry. In a backwards psychological way, the power the child yields over his parents in driving them to extreme frustration can fill an otherwise empty emotional bank account. It’s the classic case of the child who would rather get negative attention from their parents than no attention. Being yelled at is better than being ignored, as it fills his emotional account with a “bad currency” rather than leaving it “in the red”.

Here are some suggestions of “deposits” to bump up the balance in your child’s emotional bank account:

1) Give him a gift for no reason.

2) Place a note that says, “I love you” in her lunch bag.

3) Let him choose (from options you provide) the next family vacation. 4) Spend time alone with her at a location of her choice.

5) Truly listen when she speaks to you.

6) Believe in him, and his ideas.

7) Do a surprise favor for her.

8) Give him specific and truthful complements.

Making regular deposits in your children’s emotional bank accounts will yield dividends beyond any those of the highest-performing stock on the market!

Ellen C. Braun is a mother of three and the editor of http://www.RaisingSmallSouls.com Visit her interactive website for more tips regarding children's emotional development.