What if there were a strategy that you, as a parent, could use to keep your kids healthy? To buffer them from the many challenges and risks they face?  A tool to help protect them against unintended pregnancy, violence, drug use and depression and more?  And what if this strategy were so powerful that the public health world referred to it as a super protector? You’d be all over it, that’s what.

It’s called Parent-Child Connectedness or PCC, and it’s at the heart of our education efforts at Planned Parenthood. Our sexuality educators just released a report on the concept that will help parents and communities build healthier futures for Minnesota youth.

PCC is a strong emotional bond between parent and child that is both mutual and sustained over time. It’s beyond providing the basics for our kids, like food and shelter. It’s about time together, building a climate of trust, structure and open communication.

As the school year draws to a close, there’s a good chance that you’ll have more face time with your kids. From summer vacations to long weekends together, the months ahead present a great opportunity to slow the pace and reconnect.

And, believe it or not, parents have more influence in the lives of teenagers than anyone else. In fact, the top reason that teens delay intercourse is that one or both of their parents object. And when asked to reflect on  decisions about sex, teens cite parents as the most influential (46%), ranking more than twice as high as their peers.

We know that training to be a parent happens on the job, so the report explains PCC and provides tools that parents can use right away to begin building and strengthening their connection to their children, no matter what age.

One great strategy is spending time with your child. The time we spend with our kids lets them know we value them.  It can be as easy as enjoying entertainment or just being together.. You don’t have to have a purpose. It’s the time itself that counts.

Another easy way to create and strengthen PCC is to have dinner together.

Planned Parenthood’s Education and Outreach department has created the Let’s Eat, Let’s Talk . . . Let’s See Where It Takes Us! Tablemat to help families engage in healthy discussions at the dinner table. The tablemat is available in English and Spanish and features questions like:

What is love?
What are three things you can do to be healthy?
What helps a person be a good parent?
How have you changed in the last year? 

You can download it here in English or Spanish and check out a great video explaining the importance of family meals from our experts!

For more Parent-Child Connectedness strategies that you can try right away, read our report.