How do you explain love to a child
How to Teach Your Little Kids about Love and Romance – Motherswork
Let your child see how you show your love for each other through affectionate gestures like G-rated pecks on the cheek.
As your child grows, they begins to form ideas about romantic relationships from watching adults, you, and through the media. Toddlers and preschoolers might equate being close to someone as romantic love. Hence, they might declare they have a boyfriend or girlfriend, want to marry a parent or have a crush on another adult. Here are some ways you can explain and demonstrate the concepts of love and romance to your little ones.
Keep the Explanation Simple
Try these books to give your child some insight into love.
When explaining love to your child, keep it simple. Explain that love is about caring about someone or something, taking care of them and keeping them safe, e.g., how parents care for their children. Tell them that loving someone means you care about them as much as yourself, and you want the best for them, and will make sacrifices for them.
In particular, talk to them about romantic love, usually between two adults, or parents. Some ways that parents can show romance are in how they treat each other. For example, doing chores that your spouse prefers not to do, getting or making a gift for him. You can add that it’s also why parents sometimes need alone time or go out without them for date nights. Additionally, let your child know that different people express their love in various ways. These include touch, words, service, gifts and time.
Books on Love: Guess How Much I Love You, and DK Books Baby Touch and Feel I Love You, Pop-Up Peekaboo! I Love You, and I Feel Kind ($10.70 to $17.20)
Love in Actions
Let your child show their affection for their family members by making jewellery, pottery or other such gifts.
Another way to help them understand the concept is to link it to a physical experience.
Give them a hug and ask them how they feel. Explain that feeling good or happy are some special feelings related to love. Add that we can express love through the things we do every day, such as hugging, making dinner or doing the laundry. Try expressing this concept through physical actions, such as playing or listening to them, making their favourite foods and ensuring they are cared for.
Make this concept a little more concrete by giving specific examples of what they do in their daily life to show love. For example, keeping dangerous items away from their younger sibling or taking care of their pets. Additionally, ask them to come up with ways to show family members or friends their love. Some ideas might be to make a card, get a gift or video call them.
DIY Gift Options: Galt Selfie and Charm Jewellery, First Pottery, Jewellery Craft and Tiger Tribe Postcard Kit ($19.80 to $39.90)
Following in Your Footsteps
Let your child learn about the family members and friends who love them by showing them their pictures in a photo album - or from your phone.
As mentioned above, your child develops their notions of what romantic love is from watching you interact with your spouse. Qualities of healthy relationships they can discover include acceptance, friendship, affection, gratitude, sharing responsibilities and resolving conflicts. These can help influence your child’s behaviour and also their choice of a future life partner, many many years down the road.
Demonstrating your love for each other doesn’t have to be in big, drama-worthy gestures, but in sharing responsibilities in parenting and around the home. This shows your child that both of you are contributing members of the household and may inspire them to help out too.
Other Activities to Show Love
Point out family members and friends in photos who love them and whom they loves. Relate this back to your family and show them that love can be limitless, so they know that you can love them and their siblings without limits. Other options include inventing a Love Dance, which is also a great way to spend quality time with your child.
Otherwise, let your child create a sign meaning “I love you”. In the Singapore Sign Language, you first point to yourself, cross your arms over your chest, hands in fists, and then point to your recipient.
Model Unconditional Love
When your little one has a tantrum, stay by their side and comfort them until they stop crying - this shows them that they are worthy of your love.
Between Parent and Child
Inevitably, your child will act out and have tantrums, which is a great time to model unconditional love for them. Understand that this is when your child needs your help to regulate their emotions. Stay calm, then rub their back, hug or snuggle, or just wait and let them know you’re there for them. Resist the impulse to ask questions as your child is unlikely to be able to think logically or rationally. Staying beside your child during this time lets your child know that they are worthy of your affection. You can also tell them that you love them even when they are behaving badly.
Between Parents
Most importantly, when you fight as a couple, try as much as possible to do it calmly and productively. Thus, your child will see that adults can disagree but cooperate to resolve their differences. Avoid rage, name calling, bringing up past fights or shaming. You’ll also want to include an apology and hug. If you’ve been less than saintly, reassure your child that adults disagree sometimes, even loudly, but still love each other - and them - very much.
Credits: ShotPot, to_paichnidi, rawpixel
Relevant Reads: Valentine’s Day Gifts for Mum
How to Explain Love to Little Kids
What is love? Easy: if you’re Haddaway, the answer is baby don’t hurt me. If you’re Shakespeare it’s a smoke made with the fume of sighs, and also blind, and like a child, and looks with the mind, and is a madness most discreet, and that it’s too young to know what conscience is, and that if music is the food of it, then play on! Okay, so maybe it’s not so easy after all.
But it’s a question that will inevitably spill from the mouth of a curious child so, no matter how difficult, it’s worth trying to explain Because, to a child, “I love you” is one of the most common phrases they hear and say. And it’s good to know what the things you say and hear mean, even if said things have an assumed meaning and concept that people have been trying to explain since loud grunts were our preferred method of speaking. Here’s some advice on how to describe love, sweet love, in a way that your kids will understand.
1. Keep It Simple
As is the case with explaining anything to a child, simplicity reigns supreme. “The key is to use words and concrete examples they can understand and to recognize that the child’s model for love is how you treat them,” explains Scott Carroll, a child psychiatrist and physician. Start with what your child knows best: you. “Love is when you really care about someone or something,” Carroll suggests as an opener, “so you try very hard to take care of them and keep them safe, just like how mommy and daddy take care of you and keep you safe.
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Adam Grant, an author, organizational psychologist, and father of three, echoes Carroll’s advice. “I’d say love is caring as much about someone as you do about yourself,” he suggests. “It means you want the best for them and will make sacrifices for them.”
Particularly savvy youngsters might try to poke holes in your explanation — a great opportunity to explain why love doesn’t always make sense right away. “Children often respond with: why don’t you let them do what they want like eat chocolate for dinner, if you love them?” Carroll says. “You have to use simple explanations like ‘It would make you sick if you ate too much chocolate and you wouldn’t be healthy and grow.’” He cautions parents against telling their children anything such answers as, “it would make you fat,” as this could lead to unhealthy relationships with food.
2. Suit the Action to the Word
“With little kids, it’s really helpful to try to help them experience what you’re talking about,” offers Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio, a family therapist, author, and former Vice President, Health and Wellness at Prudential Financial.
That means linking your explanation to real, physical experiences. “Give your child a hug and ask, ‘How do you feel right now?’” he recommends. “They may say they feel about feeling good or happy inside. You can tell them that those are some of the special feelings that we have when we feel loved and when we love other people.”
Love isn’t just a feeling, of course. It’s the way people behave towards each other every day — something you should be sure to include in your explanation. “Go on to say, ‘Love is also all the things we do to show how much we care about one another,’” Dolan-Del Vecchio says. “‘When I gave you that big hug, I was doing something to show you how much I love you. When I surprise your mom by making dinner or putting the laundry away when it’s not my turn to do these things, those are some of the little things I do to show mom how much I love her.’” This definition starts to show some of love’s complexities: sometimes it means doing things you’d rather not do, but love makes them worthwhile.
“One concern of children about love is that there is a limited supply, and therefore that someone else — their sibling, usually — might get more than they do,” warns Elisabeth Stitt, a parenting coach. She recommends parents ease this fear with a practical demonstration. “An excellent exercise for explaining to kids that love is boundless is using the analogy of a candle flame, which burns brightly… even after it has been used to light another candle—and another, and another, and another,” she says—just make sure you use big enough candles that they don’t burn down during the exercise.
Steve Scafidi, a poet and cabinetmaker, also emphasizes the importance of the show-don’t-tell approach. “My children, when very young, cared little for explanation and care even less now as preteens,” he says. “When words were abstract or divorced from physical reality, from the sensual life of every day, they stopped listening.” He suggests a simple approach that finds love even in the mundane: “I would say love is just sitting here with you and listening to you and that love is also making the sandwich you like and being sure you are warm.
If I had to explain love to a child I would just brush the hair from her eyes and sit with her.”
3. Use Pets as an Example
Your job gets considerably easier if you have pets in the home. A beloved dog or cat can help demonstrate to your child that they already know what love is, because they exhibit it every day. “This is also a great time to acknowledge your child’s loving behavior toward those more vulnerable than they are,” Dolan-Del Vecchio says, suggesting something like: “‘When you pick up Kitty so carefully and then pet him very gently, you are showing him how much you love him.’”
Pets can also make it easier for your child to understand some of the thornier aspects of love. “We can use our puppy as an example of how we don’t let the puppy have everything she wants—like chewing plastic, running into the street and eating chocolate — because she doesn’t understand it could hurt her,” Carroll explains. “The puppy has been very useful for teaching our daughter how you have to say no because you love them.
The puppy is also good for teaching social skills and how to be kind, because our daughter is an only child.”
4. Embrace the Mystery
At its core, love is mostly unexplainable (see: Shakespeare, Haddaway), and you don’t need to pretend it isn’t. Will Eno, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright, says he’d tell his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter that you know it when you feel it.
“Without wanting to sound like a stupid t-shirt, and failing,” he says, “I’d say that little kids are love, and they approach everything with love, and you hope that love — in the low, humming, constant form of energy, curiosity, gentleness, wariness, openness, and all kinds of other words — is somehow at the center and in support of all their interactions, both with the world and with their own inner life. There are indefinable things in the world that thousands of years of philosophy have not cracked, and that’s fine.”
“I remember one very short sentence from a kind of hippy-ish book about child-rearing, which said something like, ‘In the beginning your child will feel a sense of oneness and continuity with the Universe, so don’t be in such a rush to teach her all the words — fork, eyeglasses, etc,’” Eno recalls.
“And that stuck with me in a complete way. We go slow and try to ask questions. I’ve met a lot of human beings and many seemed separated from that sense of one-ness, but not one of them didn’t know what a fork was called.”
Scafidi echoes this approach: suggesting to your child that deep down, they already know what love is. “If [my daughter] asked it, I would praise her and let her tell me the answer,” he says. “She probably has good words for it. Listening would be the love.”
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How to explain to a child what love is
Telling about love is not only for a child, but even for an adult it seems difficult. This feeling is too complicated and comprehensive! Therefore, it may seem almost impossible to explain what it is. But in fact, such an impression is erroneous. It is only important to know how to place accents in communicating with children.
How is it to love? What is love like? Who or what can you feel this way about? How is love manifested between adults, children, relatives, friends? The list of such questions from a little why could be continued indefinitely! And this is not surprising: after all, the baby hears about love almost from the cradle from all sides.
Parents say they love him, mom and dad say this to each other, in fairy tales and cartoons, characters also confess their love - not only to other heroes, but also, for example, to a sunset or honey. And what for an adult seems quite self-evident, causes a serious misunderstanding in a little man 2-4 years old - so what is love if it is so diverse?
Love can be different…
Talking about love can be based on a fairly simple and accessible postulate for a child. It is as follows: love is a strong feeling that is expressed in a positive attitude towards someone or something and means that you really like this someone or something, they give you some kind of pleasure and joy. Of course, it is better to explain using living examples from the life of the child himself. Does he like outdoor activities? So he likes to go for walks. Does he have fun playing with his dad or mom, going to various interesting places with them (such as a circus or a zoo), just chatting? It means he loves his parents.
Is he interested in having fun with his playground mates and exploring the world around him together? So he loves his friends too. In the end, if you like navy pasta and chocolates the most, then you love them compared to other products! ..
But here the difference in the types of love comes to the fore. Parental love is one thing, friendship is another, and love for food, your own home, modeling from plasticine or, for example, designers is the third. How to explain it? There are a few subtle points here. First: is it possible to live without an object of love or replace it with another? Surely the child will agree that without parents it will be very difficult and sad for him - but without sweets, in the most extreme case, he will somehow manage (there are other sweets, for that matter). And secondly, love, depending on the object of this very love, requires different efforts from a person. If you like to ride a balance bike or play with mosaics, you just want to do it more often - because it gives you pleasure.
But if you love someone (even mom and dad, even a younger brother, even your pet, then it’s not enough just to try to spend more time with him - you need to show your attitude towards him in a special way. And here it already turns out, that love is a very complex feeling that cannot be described in a few words.0003
Not only to take, but also to give
How do we all show our love? First of all, of course, in words - and you, as parents, are the best example of this. Pay attention to the child that you always tell him that you love him, that you say this to each other, as well as to your loved ones, emphasize that without them you are bored and lonely, and their attention and support help you. A kid should get used to it from childhood that talking about such an attitude to friends, relatives, his future husband or wife is not only possible, but necessary. After all, it is always pleasant to hear such words, it lifts the mood of anyone - and the feeling of love, primarily mutual, noticeably increases.
And in the end, the person who uttered such words also wins from this. After all, love teaches us all not only to receive something (as in the case of our favorite games or food), but also to give in return - and often almost more than you get yourself.
And here the next manifestation of love comes to the fore: not in words, but in deed, confirming such an attitude. A child needs to be taught from a very young age that to love means to work on oneself for the good of another. If the baby is not immediately taught that love does not mean just pure own pleasure, but affection, care, support, sympathy, responsibility, compassion, responsiveness, a willingness to share with the object of his love all his successes and defeats, to share something important with him, dear and valuable, then a selfish person can grow out of your child, who will expect and even demand only personal benefits from love. But this is fundamentally wrong - and will not bring him anything in the end, except for many serious disappointments.
Therefore, the components of “correct”, true love should be given special attention during conversations with the child.
How can love be confirmed by actions?
Here you need to focus on good examples from the outside world. Tell us that your love as a parent for him, for a child, is manifested literally in everything: in how you care for him, how you help him, how you entertain him. And therefore it is logical that you expect similar manifestations of love from him to you: you are pleased when he tries to help around the house, share his favorite treat, please his achievements in learning some new skills and good behavior in kindergarten. Similar actions should be directed towards his other beloved relatives: aunts and uncles, grandparents, brothers and sisters. Emphasize that when you love, you sincerely want to please the object of your love more often! And therefore, there is no better reward for you than such actions of a baby who loves you.
Also be sure to focus on the love of mom and dad.
Notice how you show attention when you take an interest in each other's activities for the day. Remind how each pleases the other with his pleasant words and gifts, as well as joint trips together to a restaurant or cinema. Tell in detail how you take care of each other when one of you gets sick or, say, received bad news. It is impossible to forget about the affection of loving people in this matter. Your child should know that kisses, hugs, gentle touches, and the like are not something shameful or unnatural (this, by the way, will also help you, when after some time it comes up “about it” - it will be easier for you explain that sex is part of the ritual of people who love each other). And the baby can also, with a number of reservations, show feelings in a similar way: kiss mom and dad when they come home from work, hug their beloved sister, stroke grandma or grandpa's hair.
Look for examples everywhere!
Examples of the manifestation of one person's love for another (even intimate love, even friendship, even kindred) should be looked for everywhere in general - and more often: even when the very conversation about love, it would seem, has already been slightly forgotten.
Watching an interesting movie together? Pay attention to how love is manifested there, what it gives to each of the characters, what they are ready for for the sake of this feeling. Going to visit friends? Emphasize how members of this family relate to each other, how they communicate with each other. You can even, using the expression from the legendary film, “train on cats”: watch a popular science film about the same swans, lions and other animals that are distinguished by strong “family” ties, creating pairs of times and for a lifetime, where each of the halves remains faithful to the other and accompanies her everywhere, providing assistance and support. This will make a proper impression on a small child and will surely be well remembered.
And, of course, lead by example. It's hard to tell a baby what love is if it's not in your own family. Warm, trusting relationships between parents, mutual assistance of all family members, uniting events that everyone experiences on an equal basis with everyone else - all this, observed by the child every day, and not just, as they say, on holidays, will help you lay a strong foundation in his soul.
foundation. Children still do not know how it should be! And if they see only scandals, abuse, lack of banal care for each other on the part of dad and mom, they will perceive this as a social norm. And even if many years later, when they grow up and realize that they grew up in not the most prosperous family, this is unlikely to radically change their attitude towards love. Therefore, such babies are more likely to inherit the standards of behavior of their parents ...
What about the first love?
And finally, about how to respond to the child's first love. Yes, he will be able to experience more or less serious feelings in this matter, perhaps, not earlier than adolescence. But still, in kindergarten, falling in love is not something extraordinary - didn’t you sing at that age about a couple of poems about tili-tili-dough with the bride and groom? Therefore, you need to be prepared that somehow, when the child has already passed the mandatory process of adaptation to kindergarten, he will come from there and declare that he is getting married or wants to get married (and this can apply not only to another child, but also, for example, to young teacher). How best to react? Exceptionally serious - laughter, even involuntary, or downplaying his feelings can kill in the baby the desire to share his innermost thoughts with you.
Be sure to ask about the object of love, find out how he attracted the attention of the child, specify how your child showed his feelings towards this person. Emphasize that this is all good and pleases you, but, for example, pulling the pigtails of the “beloved” girl or showing the tongue to the “groom” is definitely not worth it. And it's much better to have fun with them, take care of them and protect other children from insults, share toys and sweets, pick flowers, in the end! Of course, over time, such love will pass from the child (it is likely that in just a few days, when he finds himself a new object of love), but your advice will only benefit. Firstly, in the mind of the baby, the true manifestations of love will once again be emphasized; secondly, he will remember that as a parent you can always come to you for advice and support.
And such a trust of a loved one, you see, is worth a lot!
In addition to highlighting the positive features of love, it is imperative to touch on the topic of how this feeling can be damaged or even destroyed. Tell that love is afraid of deceit, irritability, arrogance, cunning, anger, greed and betrayal, that bad deeds or words can hurt the one who loves you and whom you love. And therefore, you need to be extremely careful in communicating with your loved one, not allowing that negativity into your relationship that could spoil them. Examples of all this, of course, should also be given - but it is better that they are not from your experience, but solely based on the same fairy tales or films ...
How to show your child your love
- Tags:
- Expert advice
- 1-3 years
- 3-7 years
- 7-12 years
- understanding
Every parent wants their child to grow up to be an educated and decent person.
We instill in the child the concepts of "good" and "bad", bring up respect for loved ones, care for the younger ones, compassion, then help them adapt to working in a team, learn how to build communication with peers. However, often, finding a common language with a child is much more difficult than learning to say a strict “no” to him. And yet, many psychologists argue that the main thing in raising a child is love, affection, care, attention and support. Often, finding a common language with a child is much more difficult than learning to say a strict “no” to him. What is the best way to show your child your love?
12 hugs a day
Young parents ask themselves questions: “Is it possible to hug a boy or will he grow up weak-willed because of this?”, “Is it necessary to kiss daughters more often than sons?”.
Everyone knows the famous phrase of the American psychologist Virginia Satir: “A child needs four hugs a day to survive; to make him feel good - eight; and in order for him to grow and develop as a person - 12.
Of course, this does not mean that you need to start a calendar and mark on it the daily number of hugs with a child. But it is worth remembering that every kid needs affection, even if he strives for independence from early childhood: he ties his shoelaces on sneakers for ten minutes and defiantly runs away when his mother tries to hug him in public. The main need of a child on a subconscious level is to feel loved.
The touch of the parents is just as important for the child as the support of the word. Remember yourself in childhood: when you were scared - you hid behind your parents, when you were upset - you needed a hug, when you were happy - you opened your arms wide and hugged your mother yourself, fervently looking into her eyes from the bottom up. And what did a father's encouraging pat on the shoulder mean to the boys? The child is then ready to move mountains!
To kiss or not to kiss: that is the question
A child can and should be hugged, kissed and praised! The love, attention, affection and care that you gave him in childhood are a kind of support in adulthood.
Belief in yourself and your strengths, a dignified attitude towards others and a realistic, positive perception of the world - this is not a complete list of qualities that you can bring up in your baby by hugging and supporting him.
Many parents of boys are faced with a cold expression of love from a child. In public, the son pushes away his mother and grandmother, who are reaching out to him, moves away, and turns his head away in displeasure if they try to kiss him. Your child is shy, but this does not mean at all that he does not need care, attention and affection. Do not show your love in public: you are raising a knight, not a princess! Gently hug your child by the shoulder at home, gently stroke his hair and kiss him on the cheek goodnight. The child will understand that he is loved. And later he realizes that even in childhood, his parents listened to his opinion, took into account his desires.
How not to spoil a child?
Love for a child must be wise: too much affection and tenderness will develop selfishness and kill the child's independence, an unloved child will grow up offended by the whole world, relying only on himself and not considering others.
How else can you show your love for a child so as not to spoil him with attention? Touch your hands, jokingly ruffle your baby's hair, hug your shoulders, gently stroke your head, pat your shoulder reassuringly. The baby needs your care and affection every day, but especially pay attention to the support of the child if he is very worried, tired, physically injured, ill, experienced stress and a sad event, frightened. It is important to pay attention to the child in the morning and in the evening before going to bed.
Ineffective types of parental love
Psychologists distinguish several types of "ugliness" of parental love: affectionate love, despotic and ransom love.
We all love our children, believing that they are unique in everything: in the first smiles, nipple throwing, timid steps. This is true, because every person is individual from birth. But, believe me, the neighbor's children also smile when dad makes them laugh, and funny fall when they learn to walk.
The instinctive love of parents for children, sincere joy for every movement of the baby, the unreasonable elevation of a small copy of parents to the rank of saints - this is what young parents should be afraid of.
A child raised in a spirit of tenderness does not know the word “no”, he grows up in permissiveness and believes that he is unconditionally the best in everything. Whims, a painful perception of failure and irresponsibility will become the main character traits of such a child. Constant tenderness will not bring up responsibility for the family, a businesslike approach to work and care for parents.
Another extreme is the despotism of parents: the child studies well, cleans his room, goes to the store, helps in raising his younger brother, is not capricious and does not ask for too much, but still a formidable dad will find something to scold. Undoubtedly, parents have power over their child, and sometimes it is worth saying a firm “no”. But do not abuse this, otherwise there is a risk of depriving the child of the desire to be good and loved.
Praise, caress and tell your friends about his success in school! And then your kind and affectionate boy will not become a rude boy in his teens, he will appreciate and respect his parents.
The third kind of unreasonable love is more often inherent in fathers - the love of ransom. A dad on the weekend or a dad providing for the family, stingy with emotions and manifestations of love for his baby is a frequent occurrence in modern family relationships. Fathers should remember that for the full-fledged education of a person with a capital letter, it is not enough to provide him with beautiful clothes, a computer and a couple of tutors. Material well-being will never replace affection, love and paternal advice! If, with such behavior of the father, the mother does not give the child three times more affection, attention and care, the children will feel spiritual emptiness. Do not be surprised if by the age of 18 your son is not characterized by pity, compassion, romance and mercy.
