Do you often hear the question “Do You Love Me?” from your child? There are seldom any parents on the earth who don’t love their children, but still, we face such questions now and then in our life. Children and sensitive and understands every move of their loved ones. You might ask “this is inevitable that I love my child, but why do I need to say this every day?”
You are right, loving our children and valuing them goes hand in hand with parenting. When you make your child feel valued by respecting their emotions, they feel attached to you. It is most essential to value the emotions, sentiments, likes, and even disliked of our kids. When we value their presence and their decision, they feel important and that is what encourages their confidence for life.
Today there is a surge of cases where children face depression, self-harm, and even self-destruction. I am sure you as a parent will never want your child to be a victim of one of those.
So what can you do to help your child?
Make you child feel valued! Make them realize that amidst all the work and involvement you have in your life, nothing is more important than them.
I like to tell stories. I will add one here. When I was a child (around 5), I always had a question in my mind that do my mother loves me? And to what extent. In those days we were not so vocal about showing love to one another. It was not that my mother did not love me, but showing her love towards me was much more important for me than just the notion that all mothers love their children and they are working hard and fast for their kids.
I would sometimes put this question in front of my father, who would then calm me by saying “yes, your mom loves you the most in the whole world, but she does not show her love much often.”
So from this viewpoint, I feel, that you can make your child feel valued by taking note of their interest, likes, dislikes, decisions, and presence.
While you practice valuing your child, they will never deviate from you and will always be affected by their roots and family even when they turn into adults.
Today when I am a mother, I ensure to show my love towards my child through various actions, talk, and emotions to make my child feel valued. So here is what you can do to make your child valued.
25 daily practices to make your child feel valued
- Start their mornings with a cuddle and snuggle. Enjoy undivided special moments with your child for at least 15 to 20 minutes every morning in the bed.
- Get down to their eye level while talking or listening to them. That encourages their self-esteem as well.
- While talking to your child calling their name more often helps them relate to their importance in your life.
- Give your child a pet name that is copyrighted by you. They feel cosy as you call them with this name at home.
- Lend an attentive ear to your child when they speak. Sometimes we hear what they say, but we don’t listen to it.
- Ask for suggestions in small family decisions such as which bed sheet to put, what to cook, which packet of biscuit to buy, and so on.
- Give importance to their suggestion. After asking their suggestion, try to along with their choice. What you can manipulate here is ‘YOU ARE OK WITH BOTH THE CHOICES YOU HAVE PUT FORWARD’.
- Sit and enjoy doing what they love. Sometimes we think, giving them toys is enough as parents, but they will be happier if you sit down with your child and enjoy doing what they like.
- Make eye contact while speaking to your child. It shows that you are addressing them and they are important in your life.
- Touch them more often to praise. Praising your child is effective, but praising while patting or touching your child gives them the instant feeling of love and value.
- Involve them in small household chores. As your child help you with his age-appropriate household chores, he develops a feeling of belongingness to the house. He also develops feelings of being valued by the family members.
- Enjoy family time over meals. A dining table is one such place where all family members come together and this can be an encouraging family bonding affair.
- Ask for an opinion while planning an event or vacation. You might like the ocean while your child might like hills. Ask for opinions while planning vacations. It is also applicable while painting your walls, choosing colours and décor for their next birthday, etc.
- Surprise them with their favourite things. As you offer to them their favourite things, they will know that you care for their choice.
- Talk about your family goals with your child. As you discuss more and more about your family to your child, they feel connected and find that you are giving them importance as a family member.
- Discourage all comparisons when it comes to your child. We might compare them with their friends for some matter, but that creates a negative impact on them.
- Introduce your child in front of others. While we meet friends and family and we greet each other, make it a point to introduce your child as a priority member of your family.
- Encourage activates at home that promotes parent-child bond. Try cooking together, indulge in DIY crafts, paint together, or just sit and watch Peppa Pig with your child.
- Talk to your child more often as an important person. Ask them about their likes and dislikes and also let them know why and praised them for their work today.
- Praise your child often, but make sure praise comes as an achievement as they do something good.
- Recognize their efforts. At times, a painting of your child may not be nice enough to be praised, but praise them for their efforts and also clear the reason for them.
- Talk to your child about your childhood and help them relate to their life. Your child will feel connected this way.
- Tell your child, nothing is important to you, then your child. You may find it silly saying this, but this is true. You have to tell this to your child. I hope this small example will help you to relate to this statement. ‘Your company has recently deposited a salary in your account. Despite getting an email notification, you will check your bank account to comfort your senses.’
- Tell your child their qualities and what makes them a better person. While you say so, your child feel valued.
- Say I LOVE YOU quiet often. Repeat this every day as many times as you can and especially after a bad day. Make it clear to your child that whatever happens, I WILL KEEP LOVING YOU.
Conclusion
As you make your child feel important and valued they develop strong self-esteem and raise to become a positive person. When they are in their teens or adulthood, you as parents don’t have to worry about your child’s future as you have laid a strong foundation of love, trust, and values in your child at a very young age.
I will come up with another article where we will discuss why is it important to convey to our children that we will love them under any circumstances. I hope you enjoyed reading my blog. If so, please leave a comment below.
2 comments
How wonderful all the points are! I actually found that I had been missing on 2 🙈
Thank you so much for this wonderful list. I hope you keep coming up with more such relevant content.
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