Every child has an emotional tank, a place of emotional strength that can fuel him through the challenging days of childhood and adolescence. Just as cars are powered by reserves in the gas tank, our children are fueled from their emotional tanks. We must fill our children’s emotional tanks for them to operate as they should and reach their potential.
We need to fill our children’s emotional tanks with unconditional love, because real love is always unconditional. Unconditional love is a full love that accepts and affirms a child for who he is, not for what he does. No matter what he does (or does not do), the parent still loves him.
Sadly, parents often display a love that is conditional; it depends on something other than their children just being. Conditional love is based on performance and is often associated with training techniques that offer gifts, rewards, and privileges to children who behave or perform in desired ways.
Only unconditional love can prevent problems such as resentment, feelings of being unloved, guilt, fear, and insecurity. Only as we give our children unconditional love will we be able to deeply understand them and deal with their behaviors, whether good or bad.
Molly grew up in a home of modest financial resources. Her father cooked the evening meal, and he and Molly washed and dried the dishes together. Saturday was a day for weekly chores, and Saturday nights they enjoyed hot dogs or burgers together. On Sunday mornings, the family went to church. When Molly and her brother were younger, their parents read to them almost every day.
Molly’s friend Stephanie came from a wealthier family. Stephanie’s father was a successful salesman who was away from home most of the time. Stephanie’s mother was a nurse who worked long hours. Stephanie had been sent to a boarding school for three years. With her father out of town and her mother working so much, the family often went out for meals.
After marrying and having one child, Stephanie was arrested as a drug dealer and spent several years in prison, during which time her husband left her. In contrast, Molly was happily married with two children.
What made the difference? Stephanie once told her therapist: “I never felt loved by my parents. I first got involved in drugs because I wanted my friends to like me.” It wasn’t that her parents didn’t love her, but that she did not feel loved. Most parents love their children and also want their children to feel loved, but few know how to adequately convey that feeling.
For a child to feel love, we must learn to speak her unique love language. Every child has a special way of perceiving love. There are basically five ways children (indeed, all people) speak and understand emotional love. They are physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, and acts of service.
If you have several children in your family, chances are they speak different languages, for just as children often have different personalities, they may hear in different love languages. Typically, two children need to be loved in different ways.