The ideal would be to transform our lives by training ourselves to have a good time with our children, and so on. Unfortunately, we do not always have the strength and the capacity to make such radical changes. Let us just grab a few minutes a day to develop an emotional bond with our children.

There are 3 crucial moments in a day during which we must concentrate our efforts:

 - in the evening before the child falls asleep

 - in the morning before he goes to school

 - in the afternoon when he comes home from school.

It is enough to devote 10 minutes a day to these 3 moments to obtain positive results. Why these 3 moments in particular? Because a child analyses and develops his emotional relationships…

Before Falling Asleep ...

We remember the strong emotions and highlights of our day and engrave them in our subconscious. If a child goes to sleep anxiously, threatened with punishment because of misbehavior, he may develop embarrassment or rejection for his parents. It is therefore imperative to close all accounts before he goes to sleep, and spend the last 10 minutes talking pleasantly, telling him funny stories, stories of Tzadikim – or in any area where he feels more comfortable.

In the Morning, before Leaving the House...

This is also a very important moment! Several children testify that they started rejecting their home on the way to school, having left home upset, and lamenting their fate to the point of wishing the worst. You should know children particularly analyse their family relationship when they leave home. It is therefore imperative to part with one's child in the morning with a smile, with tranquility and with joy. And when talking about the morning, let us add that waking up one's child with a kind word or a little joke, is much more encouraging than a strident whistle of the captain who tears the soldier from his sweet sleep!

The Child's Return Home

Another crucial moment is when a child returns home after a long day at school. A child develops his enthusiasm to return home depending on the warmth with which he is welcomed at home. If we receive a child with a smile and joy, they will equate being at home as a moment of happiness. This is not the time to assault them with questions, to suspect or annoy him, or to ask them if they have any homework. Even if we received a phone call from school announcing that our child blew up the school, we must not say anything during the first few minutes, but we should rather give our child the feeling of being welcome after a long day of separation.

As if by chance, the moments mentioned are those where there is always the most pressure at home. Children get up late every morning and wear out their parents at night until they finally go to bed. However, there is a very simple solution for this: to move the clocks of the house forward by 10 min! If the child needs to be outside at 8:10 am, set the time to 8:00, thus getting the child up 10 minutes earlier. And at 8:00, all screaming will stop, everyone will be dressed, the school bags will be ready, and everyone will be prepared to leave in a serene and happy atmosphere. The same should be done for the battles at bath and bedtime; start the process 10 minutes earlier, and make sure you spend the last 10 minutes relaxing with your child.

And let us remember once again that a parent's love must never be based on the child's performance. Admittedly, the cases mentioned are extreme, but by analyzing our actions a little, we will find that this means of pressure is often used unconsciously to obtain improvement from one's child. This blackmailing leads the child to conclude that he is not really loved. On certain occasions we may think that we have won, but in the long run we lose the tool that enables our child to grow up peacefully: love for his parents and the desire to do good to please them.