Your Children Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You

those healthy messages will protect them.
    You can limit your children’s contact with popular culture by first looking at what aspects of popular culture they are exposed to in their daily lives. Then, deconstruct what messages your children may be getting from those media and decide whether you find them acceptable or not. This decision is a personal one based on your own values and interests. I would recommend that you read up on the impact of popular culture on children and make an informed decision about what is appropriate for them. Finally, make deliberate choices about what parts of popular culture you are comfortable having your children experience.

PART II
I Like Myself
     

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Message #1: Love Is Your Child’s Wellspring (“Sooo Much”)
     
    Love is the wellspring from which everything your children become emerges. It is the foundation from which your children develop their most basic beliefs about themselves and the world that will guide their thoughts, emotions, and behavior throughout childhood and into adulthood. And love is the most powerful force at your disposal in shaping your children’s development.
CONTINUUM OF LOVE
     
    Children who are given appropriate love grow up with a sense of acceptance and security that is the basis for their ability to value themselves, explore their world, take risks, strive for goals, and connect with others. Children who feel love learn that their world is a friendly and safe place that they can trust to shield them and meet their needs. These benefits express themselves in very real ways including self-love (of the healthy variety) and love toward others, happiness, healthy relationships, and academic and career success. One of the most robust findings of research on parent-childrelationships is that the most well-adjusted children say they feel the most love from their parents.
    At the other end of the continuum are children who grow up feeling unloved, due to abuse or neglect. They learn that the world is to be feared, an inhospitable and menacing place. Children who feel unloved suffer myriad problems, including low self-esteem, stress disorders, unhealthy relationships, a higher incidence of substance abuse, and struggles in school and career.
    In the middle of this continuum of love, there are children whose parents express their love in less healthy ways. These children, by far the most common I see in my practice and social world, develop a conflicted view of the world. They receive love from their parents, so they gain some of its benefits. At the same time, because that love is often unpredictable, inconsistent, and laden with conditions, these children develop the belief that the world is the same way. As a result, they can’t feel genuine security, comfort, or trust in themselves or the world.
    These parents, though certainly well intentioned, heap love on their children, praise them unceasingly and unrealistically (“You are the most wonderful boy in the world!”), reward them out of proportion to their accomplishments, and attempt to fast-forward their development, all in the name of love and the best interests of their children. Unfortunately, these parents’ efforts are often counterproductive to their goal and end up doing more harm than good. These children face difficulties that include feelings of worthlessness, sadness, anger, guilt, shame, and internal pressure to succeed. This can manifest itself in outwardly positive ways—for example, academic or athletic success—but their inner worlds are governed by turmoil and angst. The sad reality is that while you can’t love your children too much, you can love them in the wrong way.
MODERN LOVE
     
    Loving your children has gotten a bad rap in recent years. Helicopter parents, Velcro parents, Little League fathers, and stage mothers exemplify inappropriate and potentially unhealthy love. At the heart of this “modern love,” more commonly referred to as conditional love, is the parents’ overinvestment in their children’s lives. Parents’ self-esteem becomes enmeshed in their children; how parents feel about themselves becomes dependent on whether their children meet their expectations. In response to this overinvestment, whether intentionally or unwittingly, parents overwhelm their children with love, attention, praise, and gifts when they meet their parents’ expectations. When children fail to do so, their parents either withdraw love through coldness and distance or express