Giving Your Children Validation to be Themselves

Great thoughts from Farnham Street:

All kids need the same thing from their parents. They all need to know that they are acceptable exactly as they are with all of their inconvenient feelings, number one. Number two, that no matter what, their parent will be there to help them, to take care of them, to protect them, to give them food and shelter and emotional love, physical love.

It may be one of the most important things we can give our children, is a sense of being valued, delighted in, just for who they are. When children feel that we adore them, when we delight in who they are, they feel of value. It isn’t about having to perform in a certain way. It isn’t about having to produce certain things, like get an A or be a considerate kid. Of course, we want them to do well in school, and we want them to be considerate, but our love for them does not depend on that.

Not all humans are, but most of us were not raised to be able to befriend our emotions, and at best, we see them as a necessary inconvenience. The truth is emotions are useful. Emotions are indicators of something, an indicator of something that matters to us or someplace we need to grow or someplace we need to change or something we want to change in the world around us that’s not working for us.

Our love for our children is [and should be] unconditional.