Today we celebrate Valentine’s Day; the quintessential day to commemorate love. And there is no greater, purer and more special love than the one we parents feel towards our children , and of course, the one they feel for us and express to us every day with their small gestures.
While our children are young, it is common for parents to lavish loving gestures towards them that remind them how much we love them. Kisses, tickles, hugs, smiles… are never lacking in our day to day. However, as they grow and enter new stages of life, it is also easier to lose that connection.
Therefore, on a day like today we want to remember the importance of reinforcing love for our children through two powerful words said with all the feeling: “I love you”.
“I love you”: two simple words with a powerful power of connection
Never have two words so simple had such a powerful meaning . So much so, that we reserve them exclusively for the most special people for us ; those people who are everything in our life and whom we love with all our soul.
“I love you” or “I love you” are magic words . Words that, when spoken from the heart, are capable of breaking down the walls of laziness, stress or anger and reconnecting people as if they were magnets.
That is why “I love you” should never be missing in daily communication with our children; both at times when pronouncing it is almost instinctive (for example, when we drop them off at school or say goodbye to them to go to work), and at others when it may cost us more work, as can happen after a conflict or a discussion.
But in addition to fostering a connection with our children, saying “I love you” on a daily basis also has other important benefits :
- It generates a climate of trust, complicity and emotional well-being between parents and children (it is a way of telling them “I am here for whatever you need. You are the most important thing in my life” ).
- It allows us to reaffirm our love towards them .
- It is one more way of expressing what we feel, which in turn contributes to educating them in correct emotional management and not being afraid to express their feelings.
- Saying “I love you” helps to shorten the distance that may arise with our children at a given moment. It happens for example when we have a bad day and we lose our temper easily; when children are especially irritable and we find it difficult to connect with their needs; when we have argued with them; when our children enter adolescence and seem not to want to know anything about us… Thus, in these delicate and sensitive situations , pronouncing and hearing “I love you” will allow us to forget about the differences that separate us and reconnect .
- In line with the above, hearing an “I love you” will cause an emotional impact capable of breaking any type of blockage and promoting reconciliation . Thus, the child or adolescent who hears them from their parents will feel more predisposed to communicate with them, to trust, to listen, to get involved, to seek solutions…
- Saying “I love you” before bed is a wonderful way to end the day and say goodbye to our children until the next morning. And it is that the magic of these words will help you relax, forget the worries of the day and fall asleep.
- All these benefits can be summed up in one : children and adolescents who grow up knowing that their parents love them every day are happier, more confident and have higher self-esteem.
But words must be accompanied by actions
But although it is essential to reinforce every day with these words what we feel towards our children, it is not enough just to pronounce them, but they must be accompanied by other gestures of love.
Thus, kisses and hugs should never be lacking, but neither should positive and respectful communication , active listening, complicity and trust, or disinterested and unconditional smiles.
In short, our children need to feel loved, especially when they think they don’t deserve it or when adolescence puts parents in second place. And that love must be demonstrated every day with our gestures, but also reinforced with words.
Photos | Cover (iStock); Photo 1 (Pexels, Anastasia Shuraeva); Photo 2 (Pexels, Vlada Karpovich)
In Babies and More | Does your teenager think that “you have no idea” or “you don’t know anything”?: seven keys to manage this moment in a respectful way
