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How to Love Your Child

 When children know in their bones that they are loved, you can get away with a whole lot of parenting mistakes. When children know without doubt that they are loved, they can forgive their parents their blunders. You can't go wrong.
Now you will argue, "Of course I love my child!" but I've worked with too many abused children whose parents do love them. In the Jewish community. Feeling love or having love is not enough. Showing it the right way is what matters. 

Here are some key ingredients of parental love:


1. Attachment.
Ideally, the moment you lay eyes on your child, you would have a feeling of connection, attachment. However, if you came from a neglectful or abusive home yourself, there is a real possibility that you never received the love yourself that would implant the feeling of attachment in you. If your own parents didn't feel that overpowering connection to you, then how could they pass it on to you? The good news is that it is possible to develop this feeling of connection. Oddly enough, it begins by learning to value yourself.


2. Giving.
Starting with newborn babies, meeting the baby's needs comes first. You can't let a baby cry for long periods of time because you've got something to do. So the second ingredient of love is not merely putting the food on the table. Giving means giving of yourself. From the heart.


The older the child, the less he/she needs material things and the more the child needs emotional/spiritual things.


I've worked with some very unhappy people who were wealthy. Sometimes there is a temptation among the rich, the comfortable, and even the struggling, to substitute material things for giving of oneself. This sends the child the following message: "Who you are inside is less important than what you have." That message actually diminshes the Self of the child. So, paradoxically, the more you give materially, the worse the receiver feels.


3. Respect.
This means accepting the fact that your children have their own way of seeing the world. Of course, you don't have to agree with it, but you can't be dismissive of their viewpoint, tastes, preferences, and choices. I'll take that a step further: If you want your children to step away from a path you don't like, begin by showing respect for it first; doing that buys you a lot of goodwill.


4. Validation.
This ingredient is also called affirming. Both words mean that to you, your child is worthwhile, special, wonderful, an asset to the planet. I've heard some nonsense too many times that went like this: "If you make your child think he's special, you'll spoil him." Well, I'm not only a therapist myself, but my husband and I raised four terrific children to adulthood—and we let them all know that they were special.


When we validate our child, we encourage that child to fulfil the potential for which he or she was born and created. So, interestingly enough, parents fulful the purpose for which they became parents when they facilitate their children to fulfil their purpose as human beings.


From the forthcoming book:
The Ten Worst Parenting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them,
Excerpts from Chapter 3: Discipline Without Love, and Love Without Discipline.




"DrDeb" is a Marriage & Family Therapist in
Hollywood and Boca Raton.
For an appointment, call (954) 878-2817