Falling In Love With Your Kids
by Stephanie Marston, M.F.T.

(posted 1/18/02)

When I ask parents in my seminars, "How many of you love your kids?," they look at me like I'm crazy. Of course we love our children! Then I ask, "How many of you knew you were loved by your parents while you were growing up?" Most people raise their hands. Finally I ask, "How many of you felt loved?" Fewer people raise their hands. Sometimes parents who really love their kids don't know how to convey it. The real question isn't whether you love your kids or not, but how well you are able to demonstrate your love and caring so that your children really feel loved.

Conveying our love to our children is priority number one. It needs to come before any other aspect of the parenting process. Kids don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Before you offer correction, guidance, or suggestions, your unconditional love needs to be the basis of your relationship with your children.

Remember when you fell in love with someone?. Can you recall how you felt? When you love someone, you can't wait to see him. You spend hours talking, getting to know one another. You're interested in every word he says. You want to know everything about him. You're fascinated with his history, his interests, aspirations, and dreams. You treat him as if he is the most important person in the world. You touch him often and are childlike and playful together. You do special loving things for one another--send cards, flowers, get tickets to the football game, or cook him a surprise dinner. When you are together, the rest of the world seems to fade away. You genuinely enjoy each other, celebrate their being and thank God for their presence in your life.

To build your children's self-esteem, you have to fall in love with them. How do you do that? Well, you fall in love with them just as you would with anyone else.

Here is one suggestion for falling in love with your children.

Spend Time Together
Could you fall in love with someone if you spent an hour a day together and during that time you were fixing dinner, folding the laundry, or reading the newspaper? Of course not. But we are busy people, and a lot of times that's all the time we feel we have to spare for our kids.

Studies show that parents in the United States spend less time with their children than in almost any other country of the world, including Russia. It's not that we don't care about our kids, but because we assume that the time we spend with them while also taking care of the necessities of life should suffice. However, the plain truth is nothing takes the place of spending focused time with your child.

When we set aside special time for our children they in turn say to themselves, "I must be important to my mom or dad for him/her to take this time to be just with me." This kind of special time isn't just something nice to do, it is critical in building your child's sense of self-esteem.

By the way, I'm not for a minute suggesting that it's easy to set aside special time.. With our demanding schedules it sometimes seems impossible to fulfill all of our commitments. I continually hear the cry, "There's so much to do and not enough hours in the day."

And don't worry, I'm not recommending that you give up your career to devote all of you time and energy to your kids, or that you subscribe to the martyr school of parenting, where your kids' needs always come before you own. The key is to balance our own valid needs with those of our children. This may require a reordering of priorities.

It is far to easy to lose sight of the wonder of our children amongst the daily routines of running a household and/or holding a job; we forget the preciousness of the present moment.

There are numerous ways of spending effective time with your children. Stayed tuned for more tips for falling in love with your kids.

Stephanie Marston is the author of If Not Now, When? Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife. To learn more about her book, visit her website at: www.stephaniemarston.com. Click here to read a sample chapter of If Not Now, When? Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife If you would like information about Stephanie speaking to your organization, please call 505-989-7596.