It is not uncommon for me to hear teenagers tell me that they just want to know that their parent(s) love them. I also hear adults tell me the same thing; I just want to know my parents love me or that they did love me. This is such a hard thing to hear. Do parents not love their children? I know that this will be a blog that will not relate to most of you who are good parents and who have children that feel loved. But for those parents that this relates to it is important to hear what I have to say. Once I worked with a family where the parents were asked to tell their 13 year old daughter that they loved her every day. One parent did this consistently but one could not do the assignment. Did that parent love that child? I believed so but could not tell her.
This is an obvious situation. What I usually hear about it more subtle. The things that teenagers tell me are about these things:
- Parents get angry with their children and yell at them. I frequently remind you that yelling at kids is like trying to steer a car by honking the horn. When we yell at our children they do not feel loved.
- Sometimes parents are demeaning toward their children. When this occurs they feel like they can't be good enough to earn your love.
- Sometimes parents do not make time for their children and when that happens they feel unimportant.
- When we don't listen to our children they feel undervalued.
As parents we don't always think about the things we say. When I was growing up and was difficult my parents would tell me they were going to take me to the local orphanage and drop me off and I could live there; maybe then I would appreciate what I had. Whenever we were in the car on our way somewhere and our path took us by that orphanage I was always fearful they were going to drop me off there. Our kids hold onto the things we tell them.
We all survived these difficult situations; even me. So why is this important? I think that as teenagers, children that don't trust that they are loved are more likely to look for love in other ways. I see 12 year old girls that are determined to have sex. I also see teens dating earlier than developmentally they are ready and as I said, having sex earlier. Often they are looking for love. We want our children to feel loved so they don't go looking for love somewhere else. This is not the only reason for this but it is a factor. This week think about your interactions with your teen. Do your behaviors possibly cause them to feel disheartened? Do they hear often enough that your love them unconditionally? (They also need conditional love but that is for another blog.) It is not easy raising teenagers and their behaviors push the limits often but as their parents it is our job to correct the behaviors not to shame the kid. I hope you find you pass the test but if not (or even if you do) tell your teen more often how much better your life is because of them. Our future is at stake here. Sherri
Comments