Level 1 in Effective Practical Parenting is Communicating Love

Communicating love to your child is the first discipline choice that needs to be exercised.  How is communicating love a discipline choice?  Discipline, in its entirety, encompasses all aspects of life with children.  The definition of discipline is to teach. 

In communicating love, we create the relationship on which all future interaction is played out.  In the ways we manage or fail to communicate love, we create the tone of the relationship. 

By communicating love, we insure that our words of correction are offered in a context of security.

Dr. Ross Campbell was one of the first authors I was privileged and blessed to read in my early parenting years.  He wrote a book which has fortunately earned classic status in the parenting category.  It is a short, practical and wholly applicable booked called “How To Really Love Your Child”.  In it, he details the ways in which we need to communicate our love for our children.  The primary vehicles he suggests are eye contact, physical touch and quality time.  He later went on to expand this idea by co-authoring a book with Gary D. Chapman on the 5 Love Languages of Children.  This book speaks to the specific ways in which love is felt by individuals.

Dr. Ross talks about the distinction between being loved (most kids are) and feeling loved (many kids don’t).  Proactive EPP recognizes the difference and works to insure that children feel the present love.

Children who feel loved are the most able to learn, grow and develop.  They are the most able to accept constructive criticism.  They are the least fearful of reproach and least likely to resist correction with a fierce attitude.  Children who feel loved are able to bring their resources of change and growth to each event, secure in the knowledge that they are loved, safe and protected.  This is what I call the envelope of nurture. 

Children secured by the felt love of their parents move forward knowing their value, their worth, their preciousness.  They have appropriate pride and confidence.

Before we move forward in our discussion of ways to help your child feel loved, allow me to emphasize again the distinction between being loved and feeling loved.  The two are related, but separate.  A child can be very much loved, but feel unloved or feel that the love is conditional.

I am assuming an immeasurable quantity of love in your hearts and minds for your children.  The words below are ways to communicate that love to them.

This love is communicated in the presence of time, attention, focus and in the absence of shame, punishment and adversarial posturing.  Communicating love absolutely involves including limits, but the focus needs to be on the feeling of love and not the need for authority.

The way in which you cultivate and grow the love atmosphere in your home will reflect your family’s values, personality and lifestyle.  I intend to offer general guidelines to assist you in communicating the present love.  As vehicles for expressing love, I suggest touch, time, ritual and words.

Touch

Much research is available to back up the need for touch.  In its absence grows dysfunction.  Babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and school agers need a variety of touch that changes with the development of the child.

Babies need lots of in arm time for security, survival and bonding.  I believe in an in-arm, responsive style of baby care.  Attachment Parenting is one increasingly well known way of honoring a baby’s need to literally be held in loving arms, responded to quickly with cuddles, care and cooing.

Toddlers need frequent hugs and physical comfort in order to check in and venture “out” with confidence.  In all their new found mobility, they return often for the physical reassurance of the protection, care and direction available through the touch of parents. 

Preschoolers need touch to temper and bolster their growing independence.  They are growing in stature, but also in ability, vocabulary, reasoning and desire. In order to mitigate the challenges created by growing autonomy, preschoolers need an abundance of physical assurance.

As children approach school age, the world opens up to them at an almost alarming pace.  School agers need touch to anchor them as they face issues of growing complexity.  The touch they crave is different in quantity and type, but as important as picking up the crying baby.

Hugs, kisses, back rubs, wrestling and hand holding are all ways in which we can use touch to remind our children “I love you”. 

Time

Time engaged with your children is of primary and obvious importance.  The key is engaged with.  Time around is important, as well, but the engaged focus is what communicates “I love you and you can count on that because I’m taking the time to interact with just you.”  Engaged quality time can take hundreds of forms.  I suggest finding ways to sprinkle it throughout each day, week and month.

Include planned, impromptu and predictable time with each child and as a family unit.

Remember that a request for time together is asking a question:  Do you love me?  Make sure you answer “yes”, even if you need to schedule the time together “later”.  Keep the date, and follow through.

Ritual

The developing of ritual with your children is a powerful, and under utilized, way of building a culture of love.  Ritual is related to routine, but includes an added dimension of reverence. Ritual plays a powerful role in fostering the secure feeling of love.

Our daily lives present many opportunities for ritual.  Meals, comings and goings, upon awakening, going to bed.  Special days of the week.

We have “Family Movie Night” which is more of an event than a couple of hours. It involves a trip to the dollar store for junk food, a trip to the movie store to pick out a movie, an “argument” about whether the kids can watch the movie my Husband and I picked out for “later”, pizza during the movie.

A daycare client of mine had a ritual at drop off in which she and her daughter recited a sing-song love poem.  It was clearly a moment of comfort and care for each of them.

Using a special plate at dinner for the “special person” each day is a ritual. 

Bedtime chats, even prayers, cookies and milk after school are all rituals. 

Rituals by nature create an atmosphere of predictability and affection.

Words

Words provide a nearly always accessible way of communicating present love.  They are available, flexible and powerful.  You can use spoken words, gestured words, written words, and you share words by reading them together in a book.

Love notes are great ways to communicate love.  My children keep the love notes I’ve written them. 

I have facial expressions and gestures that communicate my love for them.  Some are simple as a blown kiss.  Others are secret (adds to the feeling) gestures of love.

Surround your child with words that say “I love you”. 

Using touch, time, ritual and words to communicate to your child your love for them is the first step towards creating an Effective Practical Parenting home.