This month we begin a new series with parenting coach and mother of three, Dr. Maya Cockeram. Dr. Maya graduated from the University of Birmingham in the U.K and went on to specialise in family medicine. A stay-at-home mum, she has since worked part time as a councillor, lecturer and most recently a parenting coach for Mums in Colombo (www.facebook.com/mumsincolombo).
Over the coming weeks, Maya will share her hard won wisdom on subjects parents struggle with – from communicating effectively with their children to managing what their kids are exposed to and on to why disciplining your child can be so intricately tied up with disciplining yourself. This week, she takes on the subject of the ‘love languages,’ how to ensure your child feels loved and why this might be the most important gift you ever give them.
How can parents strengthen the bond
between themselves and their children?
Secure attachment starts from birth. Frequent skin-to-skin contact, breast feeding and bedding close to baby are crucial for strengthening the bond between the mother and her newborn, as is ‘baby wearing’. This means being responsive to the baby and being available to her whenever she needs comfort. It is not possible to ‘spoil’ a baby under 12 months old. The baby cries because she needs a vacuum filled, be it hunger or the need for love. The more responsive a mum and dad are to a baby in the first few months the more secure the attachment and so the easier the baby will find it to separate from the parents at the appropriate age. If nothing else, it is essential that during the formative years, a child needs to be raised by someone who loves him, and not someone who is paid to look after him.
Why is it so important that children feel loved? How can feeling unloved impact their behaviour?
Our children need to know that we love them no matter what! No matter what they look like, what their achievements are, what disabilities they have. Unconditional love is not just a feeling, it is an action. Which means that even if we don't feel particularly loving towards a child because of their behaviour or their attitude, we make it clear that it is their behaviour we dislike, not them. Many adults who were conditionally loved by their parents or felt that they were a disappointment to their parents grow up with low self-esteem. They in turn make for poor spouses and parents as they themselves have no idea how to receive and therefore give unconditional love.
What are the love languages?
A few years ago I read a life-changing book called the ‘Five Love Languages of Children’ by Gary Chapman and Dr. Ross Campbell. In it, they explained that if children feel genuinely loved by their parents, they will be more responsive to parental guidance in all areas of their lives. For a child to feel love, we must learn to speak her unique love language. There are basically five ways children (indeed, all people) speak and understand emotional love.
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| Breast feeding one of the main ways of securing
attachment between mother and baby from birth |
They are physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, and acts of service.Even when they are busy, parents can often gently touch a child on the back, arm, or shoulder. Other children might respond better to words of affection and encouragement. You can prioritise quality time - it means giving a child your undivided attention - or select a gift meant especially for them.
Acts of service that are genuine expressions of love will communicate on an emotional level to most children. When that child whose primary love language is acts of service, asks you to fix a bicycle or mend a doll’s dress, he or she does not merely want to get a task done; your child is crying for emotional love. Each request calls for a thoughtful, loving response.
How can the five love languages be
incorporated naturally into a parent child relationship?
It is important that parents communicate love to their children by all the above five ways, but also important to understand which way their child feels loved the most, and to make sure they love them that way. For example my second son’s primary love language is physical touch.
He loves being hugged and kissed and cuddled, and giving hugs and cuddles too! My primary love language in the other hand is gifts and words of affirmation. Physical touch does not do much for me. But I know that when my son comes to me and hugs me and kisses me even when he is sweaty and dirty then that it’s vital that I hug him and kiss him back, even though I may not feel like it. Ensuring that you are speaking your child’s love language and hence making sure he feels unconditionally loved is one of the greatest gifts you can give your child.
If like every other parent, you sometimes don't behave as well as you would like to with your child, how should you address it?
Our children need to know that we their parents are not perfect, that we too make mistakes and that we too are learning every day. I went to a seminar a few years ago and there learnt the 12 most important words in the English language. “I am sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me. I love you.”If we have made a mistake in our behaviour or anything we have said or done then it is vital that we apologise using these words to our children, and not make a conditional apology such as “I am sorry I hit you, but you made me angry.” It takes a big person to say sorry to a small person and in doing so you are teaching your children so many lessons on so many levels. |
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