Being Involved in Your Child's Life Is Important, and Here's Why

On the day you become a parent, everything changes. During the first few years a child's life, there's no doubt that parenting can be demanding, intense and all-out consuming. While it might seem that your child needs or wants you involved less and less as time goes on, don't be fooled. It will always be important for you to maintain a presence. While it's true that the way you go about it will be different depending on their age, interests or needs, one thing will remain the same. Staying present and involved is one of the most important things you will ever do. Read on for some ways your involvement can benefit your child.
It Can Keep Their Physical Development on the Right Track
When a child is very young, physical milestones are something that parents and doctors pay close attention to. However, there is much more to a child's physical development than rolling over and walking. Children are constantly growing and changing, and your influence has a lot to do with it.
Encouraging and modeling healthy behaviors is a huge part of staying involved. Whether it's including your child in meal planning or prep, instilling proper hygiene habits, taking family hikes or picking up a couple of youth baseball gloves so your kids can play ball in the backyard, you have the ability to influence healthy behaviors that will stick with them for years to come.
It Can Help Them Succeed in School
Your child's school years are some of the most formative years they will have, but they can't (and shouldn't) do it alone.
Whether it means joining a parent teacher group, chaperoning school trips and events or signing up as a guest reader in their classroom, your presence in your child's school will be noticed and appreciated.
In addition to the physical part of you being there, your child will feel supported and your involvement will help to create a familiar bond to share. Also, getting to know different faces and places your child sees often will create opportunities to have good conversations together, which is crucial to a strong parent-child relationship.
It Can Nurture and Protect Their Mental Health
When it comes to your child's mental health, it's important to remember the environment at home will have a long lasting impact on your child. What's also important is keeping track of your own behaviors and tendencies. Are there things you feel you should work to improve? While nobody is perfect, it's important to examine and fine-tune your own coping, problem-solving and nurturing skills when needed in order to ensure your child has a strong foundation to learn from.
Communication is a huge part of this; one that needs to be worked on consistently. Making time for family meetings and one-on-one time will give everyone the chance to check in with each other.
When your child reaches the teen years, you might find it challenging to be as involved in their life as you were before. Don't give up. Try different approaches, keeping things as low-key as possible. Learning to identify their queues will take some time, so patience and flexibility will be key here.
It Can Instill Morals and Values
A huge part of parenting is to teach, and what's so wonderful about that is there are no limits. This is why placing a focus on morals and values is so important. Finding different ways to instill or discover new values is an ideal way to remain part of your child's life and experience new things together, while also encouraging their independence and growth.
This could mean regularly donating time, money or other goods to the humane society, adopting a family during the holidays, or volunteering regularly. For families practicing religion, this could mean attending church regularly, or ending each day with a prayer.
Staying involved in your child's life can look like many different things. What works for some families might not work for others, but you'll eventually find your niche. You'll all be glad you did.