Richard R RamosRichard R. Ramos. Founder of Parents on a Mission,Youth on a Mission, and Latino Coalition for Community Leadership

Why Kids Follow Those They Like The Missing Link in Parental Influence

15 Mar 2026 · 2 min

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1:52

In this talk, Richard R. Ramos argues that many parents unintentionally diminish their influence over their children by positioning themselves primarily as disciplinarians and rule‑enforcers, especially in the age of social media. He introduces the "liking principle" – the idea that children are more likely to follow adults they feel a genuine, relational connection with. Ramos outlines two core “weapons of influence”: (1) building relational rapport by sharing interests, laughing together, and avoiding judgment of a child’s hobbies, and (2) leveraging the power of social media to model positive behavior rather than merely policing it. He provides concrete, low‑effort tactics such as watching movies together, sharing jokes at dinner, and actively participating in a child’s passions, emphasizing that these actions create a sense of being liked, which in turn increases parental influence in a healthy, supportive way.

Chapters

And so they're easily influenced by them. But we can do the same thing as parents. But a lot of times, uh, we destroy our influence because we're not thinking that way, and we're only, you know, thinking of ourselves sometimes as disciplinarians, and we're not showing the interest in what our kids are interested in, or we're making fun of it, or we're putting it down, or we're judging it. Whatever their hobbies and interests might be. And so kids are not feeling connected to that. They're not liking that necessarily. And kids were simply— they look at us kind of as the, the social media police, you know, the, uh, we're enforcing the rules all the time. And a lot of times that's the way our kids look at us. Uh, but we're missing a great opportunity. But we can learn from these two principles that I'm talking about, these two weapons of influence, to influence our children in a great way, in a good way, in a connecting way, relational way. Um, that's what this is all about. So I have written here some simple ways we can apply this liking principle. Number one, by just laughing with our kids. And now I hope you do that, you know, just crack up, laugh. You know, it might be a movie together, it might be a program together, or just, you know, sitting around having dinner, or just finding ways to just have a good laugh with, with your kids. You know, just the same way you laugh with your adult friends, the same way they, they laugh with their peer friends. Isn't it? It's just cool to think about. Yeah, I'm cracking up with my daughter.