Building Lasting Relationships with Your Children: The Ultimate Guide to Parenting As an Entrepreneur

Are you struggling to balance your entrepreneurial journey while raising healthy, leader-minded children? You're not alone. Many business-focused parents find themselves wondering how to invest in their greatest treasure - their kids - while pursuing professional success.

In this comprehensive guide, I'll share my personal experience raising four children as an entrepreneur and reveal the secrets to building strong relational capital that will influence your children positively for years to come.

What Is Relational Capital and Why Does It Matter?

Just as you understand financial capital in your business ventures, relational capital works similarly in human connections:

• You understand capital in your business
• You know how accounts can increase or decrease
• The same principles apply to relationships with your children

The more relational capital you build with someone, the greater your influence and ability to steward them well. While this article focuses on children, these principles apply equally to team members, spouses, business partners, and others in your life.

My Personal Parenting Journey

When my wife Missy and I had our first child at 22, we knew very little about parenting. Fast forward to today, and we have four children: Liberty (20), Jacob (17), Jayden (14), and Judah (13).

During a recent mountain trip with my younger boys, I had limited laptop time but realized the importance of sharing what I've learned along this journey. As one friend recently told me about my son Jacob, "Dude, I saw Jacob at Chick-fil-A last week. Man, he exudes joy. It was the highlight of my week, not kidding."

That kind of feedback reminds me why investing in our children matters so much.

6 Powerful Ways to Build Relational Capital with Your Children

1. Express Love in Their Language

Understanding and speaking your child's love language is foundational to building relational capital. According to Gary Chapman, there are five primary love languages:

• Words of affirmation
• Acts of service
• Physical touch
• Quality time
• Gifts

When you intentionally express love in your child's preferred language, you create significant deposits in their relational account.

2. Practice Patience in Communication

How many times have you found yourself saying, "Because I said so"? While sometimes necessary, this response often stems from frustration rather than intentional parenting.

Building relational capital requires:

• Being slow to anger
• Being slow to speak
• Being quick to listen

When you listen to understand your children's position, you lower their defenses and demonstrate that you value their perspective, even when it seems ridiculous to you. This approach builds healthy respect and strengthens your relationship.

3. Focus on the Positive

It's easy to point out mistakes, especially if you have perfectionist tendencies. However, consistently highlighting what your children do wrong creates withdrawals from their relational account.

Instead, build capital by regularly acknowledging what they're doing right. This positive reinforcement creates a stronger foundation for growth and development.

4. Correct Privately, Not Publicly

Everyone has an ego they naturally protect. When correction happens publicly, defenses immediately rise - like trying to break into Fort Knox.

Creating a safe, private environment for correction proves much more effective. When done consistently, your children will become less defensive and more receptive to guidance.

5. Model Humility and Forgiveness

Nothing builds relational capital faster than admitting when you've made a mistake and asking for forgiveness. This humility:

• Sets the right example
• Demonstrates emotional intelligence
• Creates reciprocity in your relationship

Remember that withdrawals will inevitably happen - we all have off days. But these shouldn't become the norm. What should be normal is consistently investing in and building up your children while maintaining healthy boundaries and high standards.

6. Invest in Yourself First

You cannot pour from an empty cup. Building relational capital with your children starts with your relationship with yourself. This might mean:

• Spending time in solitude and silence
• Seeking therapy when needed
• Getting out in nature (perhaps fly fishing, like I enjoy)

Without proper self-care and margin in your life, effectively pouring into your children becomes nearly impossible.

Applying These Principles in Your Family

While the Evans family isn't perfect (I still have three teenage boys who can be "savage animals" at times!), we've created a healthy family unit that produces good fruit. People notice the difference in our children, like my friend who was impacted by my son's joyful presence.

These principles require patience, intention, and consistency - qualities that successful entrepreneurs already possess. By applying these same skills to your parenting approach, you can develop the kind of relational capital that creates lasting influence.

Final Thoughts

Parenting as an entrepreneur presents unique challenges, but also incredible opportunities to raise children with leadership mindsets and healthy perspectives. By focusing on building relational capital through these six approaches, you'll create stronger connections and more positive influence in your children's lives.

What aspects of building relational capital resonates most with you? Have you found other effective ways to invest in your children while pursuing entrepreneurial success?

Want more insights on balancing entrepreneurship and parenting? Subscribe to our newsletter at Chrisaevans.com/newsletter for regular updates and guidance.