When we first have a kid most of us dreamt about their future, how we were going to protect them, and how we were going to make sure that we start off correctly with not too much but just enough parenting intervention. Often our desire for them to have a successful and happy future leads us to parenting behaviors that do not put the relationship first. The lessons and the parenting become more important. It is our job to influence our children and in order to do that, we have to maintain a healthy relationship with them even though really difficult times. They won't always like us and sometimes we have to set difficult boundaries, but we can protect and put the relationship first on our end consistently.