Tips To Help Your Child Develop Healthy Relationships
So how do your adolescents develop healthy relationships with their peers? I grew up in a small Hudson Valley community just outside of New York City in the 1960s and 1970s. During my adolescence summer nights at the town's Carvel Ice Cream stand served as place to be for the car less kids like me in middle school. I lived a 15 minute bike ride away from the Carvel stand. My parents permitted me to make the evening bike ride from my home to the Carvel stand by myself so long as returned home by 9 p.m. sharp. The Carvel provided a space for youth like me entering purity to interact. The ice cream looked and tasted great which helped as I learned how to talk with my peers and develop healthy relationships. So here are the takeaways: give your child as much freedom as they can handle; set a curfew and enforce it; provide work opportunities for your child to earn a reasonable salary for their age to purchase things like ice cream; know where your child is and with whom; facilitate group opportunities for interaction with the opposite sex instead of dating; as often as possible require your child to walk or ride their bike to local destinations; it will help prevent childhood obesity.
Now I never had an opportunity to ask my parents if they had been that intentional with my trips to Carvel, but it certainly had the outcomes outline here how in helping your middle school child develop healthy relationships.
