In a lot of my parenting consultations I find myself telling the parents that the best way to manage their concerns is to increase love and decrease consequences. This past month a parent asked me to be more specific about what love looks like for children; what did they have to do to choose love over consequences. I thought that maybe all of you would like the answer to this question so here are my answers:

These work with all age groups:

Touch them often- kisses on the head, circle touch on their back, holding their hand
Play/Exercise with them- pool, trampoline, dance, walks, board games, etc.
Be present with your children. Make sure when they are around to not be distracted with other activities or tasks
Share books with them and speak about the values, feelings and relational patterns in the book, that match your families rules and values.
Ask them questions like, "what do you think?" "what made you say that?" "how do you think you can resolve this? I trust your ideas"
Share your childhood stories. Especially when they can match an issue “bad” moment they had
Watch a TV show together. Bonus points if it’s a TV show that they love
Make sure to take a moment to sit with them when both of you are calm and tell them, these are especially important for teens:
- you love them even if the two of you see the world differently
- you will continue to work on accepting and trusting their choices
- they do not have to change themselves or do anything to attain your love

Hope these are helpful. Each day take one of these and try to do them within those 24 hours. Promise, love gets you more miles than consequences. We follow and try to be like those we love and respect. We defend and lie to those we feel judge and punish us. Its human nature. You can’t go wrong with love.