Of course, Adam’s father did not intend to end up in this kind of relationship with his son. No one makes plans to be estranged from his or her children. As a middle school teacher, however, it is heart wrenching how often I see distracted, angry children and their frustrated parents develop deep and unresolved conflicts with one another—conflicts that are almost guaranteed to eventually result in estrangement if not directly addressed.

Every time I end up in one of these all-too-common situations, I can’t clearly express how dearly I wish I could travel back in time to when the child was an infant and share just one small bit of advice: be mindful, thoughtful and aggressive about building relationship with your child every day.

Thirteen years old is just too late. While transformation of the relationship at this age is not impossible, most of the genuine opportunities for real change have already passed.

Take the time to build relationship with your children every single day.

Stated so plainly, it seems too obvious and simplistic to be useful. Like so many other things in life, however, it is not so simple as it appears. Life sets many important demands on our energy, our time and our focus; it’s easy to get lost among them and they cloud our sense of overall vision. It is my hope that this article will help provide at least one way to break the gathering fog.