Who has a strong influence on your child? Who is the one your child turns to when he or she needs to talk? Most young people have someone or maybe a couple of people they depend on.

Both parents are important to children. It’s up to each couple to make parenting a shared project in your home. Even if you are a single parent, look for help because it brings about the best results.

Each child needs help such as:

• two people talking to the kids regularly brings the best outcomes

• two people to be involved in discipline issues that frequently become major issues

• two people to be responsible for transporting them to many locations

• two people to be involved in checking homework

• two people to limit the amount of screen time for the children

• two people to help by checking in with the teacher or teachers

• two people to help your child heal from a broken heart

• two people to discuss heavy duty issues such as poverty, honesty, racial discrimination, war, morality, religion and other big issues

• two people to discuss personal/sensitive issues in an understanding way

• two people to communicate and enforce house rules

• two people to both say how much they love a specific child and to say it regularly

Raising kids is a tough job. Make it a point to have it be a shared job. If your partner is not available, see if you can enlist the help of a grandparent or and aunt or uncle. Sometimes you need to have a second party just to listen to what is happening and to give you some feedback.

In reality, you may be the one who needs to talk with someone else more than your child needs a second person.

We all need to have a friend who will listen to our problems or to help us understand what is happening with our children. Certainly this is important to our children but that doesn’t mean you should neglect finding a friend, a partner or even a therapist you can talk with. Recent research emphasizes the importance of having someone in our lives we can reach out to in difficult times.

Let your child see that you understand the need for a friend or a confident. Once again, you are modeling the behavior that is important for your child to see and to be able to emulate. I bet you didn’t think you would be teaching your child about the importance of having a close friend.

Your child is checking out your behavior every day. He or she may not be mimicking what you are doing but they are close.

People you love — and that includes parents and children — are teaching lessons to others every day. Keep up the good work.

Cynthia Martin is the founder of the First Teacher program and former executive director of Parenting Matters Foundation, which published newsletters for parents, caregivers and grandparents.