Why Good Parents Cuddle a Lot in Front of their Kids

This is #15 in a series of blogs by PJ and Ash on Parenting. This blog looks at why it is important for parents to show affection in front of their kids…

Dads, after teaching your kids about the unconditional love that God has for them and you have for them, the next most powerful thing that you can do to make them feel secure is to love your wife. Do not keep your love for your wife a secret from them. Kiss and cuddle her in front of your kids. Make a big thing of it every time you take her out on a date. Let them enjoy teasing you about your romantic advances on her. If they complain that I am taking Mum out ‘again’, then I say, ‘Guys, I know you miss us but I love your Mum more than anything else in the world and need to take her out and spoil her.’

Another powerful display of this is when I get home from work; I usually give everyone a hug and then tell the kids to go out of the room for a few minutes whilst I ‘catch up’ with Mum. We call this ‘couch time’. Then, once Ashleigh and I have had a ten-minute catch up about our days, I give my attention to the kids.

Through doing these kind of things, I am teaching them how to romance their future wives, but more importantly I am assuring them that our marriage and home is secure.

Gary Ezzo teaches that if your child is insecure, attention-seeking or disruptive especially in the night, then the first thing you need to do is to implement ‘couch time’ for two weeks, and make sure your child knows you are doing it, and that he cannot interrupt it. He will try to disrupt it like you can’t believe but stick to you guns, and I bet that he will be a different kid after a couple of weeks.