A message from the Director

To Love and be Loved

Tis the season to be not only jolly but practice sharing, caring and Loving!

This is the season where many parents are not only buying gifts and food for their families but also for other families that they may not even know as an act of loving kindness. This type of love and caring is a learned skill that must be taught to our children. A parent can teach their children that part of the secret to being loved is to be more loving and caring. Parents can model this behavior by including their children in the process of sharing and caring for others.

According to Marie Hartwell-Walker ED.D. (psychcentral.com), here are some ways that effective parents can help their children learn and practice the skill and art of loving:

• Model sharing and consideration for others, including your partner, your children, and your friends. Kids breathe what we do and say. Your willingness to be unselfish when it would be easier not to be really does matter.

One mother I know says that she tries to take an attitude of “why not” rather than “why” whenever someone asks her to do something. She has found that this fundamental shift in her thinking makes an enormous difference in how she gets along with others.

• Name loving acts. Help your children recognize when they are showing love in ways big and, especially, in ways small.

One of my teachers used to talk a lot about the importance of catching children being right. Noticing and commenting when your children do something thoughtful, selfless, or helpful helps them to understand something as abstract as loving and makes them want to do it again.

• Make a conscious effort to do something subtle and personally meaningful for those you care about as often as you can. Most people don’t want parades and flowers (well, maybe occasionally they do). Most people feel very, very loved when someone makes a call during a rough week, remembers how they like their coffee or does an errand they find hard to fit into the day. It really is the little things that count.

• Make sure that your kids learn how to recognize when people have extended themselves for them and help them learn ways to express appreciation. Love is an interaction between people. Children as young as 18 months can understand that they need to say thank you when they have been on the receiving end of love. The rote response that comes after a parental prompting will become their own response in time.

From the time her children were able to hold a crayon, a neighbor of mine has helped her children draw and “write” thank-you notes whenever they received a gift. By the time they were teens, her kids automatically sat down with paper and pen to acknowledge the thoughtfulness of others. The key to this good behavior is that their mother didn’t see it as a detestable chore but rather as a very, very important part of maintaining relationships. When the kids were little, she made a game out of it. As they grew, she helped them understand the richness that comes from graciously receiving love and sending it back as a verbal hug.

• Don’t forget to show affection. Everyone needs touch and hugs and little gestures of connection and contact — especially when they don’t feel that they deserve it.

One of my friends claims that it takes a minimum of three hugs a day for kids to grow into healthy adults. I don’t know if there is scientific evidence for this idea, but I do know that her kids seem really secure and happy.

So begin today and continue throughout the year teaching your children to practice acts of loving, caring, sharing, and kindness and when done well will lead to a lifetime of being loved.