Intimate parenting to build family resilience

Abstract

School personnel provide a variety of services to teachers and students, but parents are often left out. This is surprising considering the important role that parents hold in their child’s growth and well-being. Parents’ role becomes more complicated at times of crisis, such as war or COVID pandemic. Parents are often challenged by their children because of personal difficulties, and even more so at time of crisis. The level of loneliness, anxiety and depression increase for both children and parents; parents are confused, angry and helpless, reacting in rejection, criticism, anger, and disappointment, while the children need the opposite reaction – warmth, love, empathy, appreciation, and trust. Children depend on their parents’ emotional support, particularly at difficult times. Both parents and children need a feeling of emotional closeness and a sense of intimacy in their relationship, however, this is not the case for many of them, as many parents find it difficult to handle themselves intimately. As the parent-child relationship is key to the child’s emotional, social, behavioral, and academic success, parents must be assisted, and school is an ideal place to do so. The School-based family counseling (SBFC) model suggests a comprehensive view of services that should be provided by school professionals, including parent education, support group, consultation, and counseling groups, which are still quite rare. Among those services counseling groups to develop parent-child intimate relationship, will be the focus of this chapter. At times of crisis Intimate relationship in the family is a must.