"I love you". Can any words possibly sound sweeter or offer greater comfort? Is any statement more natural – or necessary – between a parent and child? In many families, these words come easily. But if you grew up never hearing them, saying "I love you" may feel somewhat unnatural to you. Or if members of your family used loving statements to control or manipulate, you may be very uncomfortable using them with your own children.
Many families either don't communicate loving feelings very often or they communicate them in destructive ways. A counselor friend once told me she was appalled to discover that some of her clients had never heard the words, "I love you" from their parents: "I couldn't imagine parents who couldn't say 'I love you' to their children, probably because I grew up hearing it all the time. But in the middle of my shock and self-righteousness, I realized that in my family, that statement was always loaded with expectations for me to do something. Most of the time when my parents said 'I love you' they would stand there and wait for us to say 'I love you, too'. So that statement always came off as a solicitation, rather than an expression of how they really felt about us."
If either of these extremes describe your upbringing, chances are, you aren't using loving statements as often – or as "cleanly" – as you might. A few simple guidelines can help.
Let's hear it! We all need to hear loving statements from people we care about. It may be easy to assume that your kids know you love them. After all, you do love them and you probably do a lot of loving things for them. That's important.
But feeling love for someone is not the same as expressing it. Nor is doing loving things. Loving feelings and loving behaviors are not loving words – and those are important, too.
If you find it hard to get the words out of your mouth, either from lack of familiarity or fear of rejection, start slowly. A parent in one of my workshops confessed to practicing on the dog for a few days before she could get up the nerve to try it out on her kids! Another started by writing love notes to her children, sneaking them into their lunch bags or under their pillows. Both reported such a strong, positive response from their children, that saying "I love you" came much more easily after that.
Let's hear it some more. None of this "I-told-you-I-love-you-in-1985" stuff, OK? This isn't like going to the dentist twice a year. So maybe it's still not easy to say, even with the practice and little successes. Maybe hearing "I love you" even gives your kids the creeps (this is more age specific than anything else and less likely to happen if you don't say it in front of his entire 5th grade class). Say it anyhow. As a gift to yourself, communicate your love daily. At least.
Keep it simple! "I love you" is a complete sentence. We don't need to tie our feelings for a person to the person's behavior. In fact, whenever we connect it to something the other person has done, "I love you" becomes a statement of conditional caring.
"I love you when you make your bed", or "I love you when you make the honor roll", suggest that you love your child because of his behavior or accomplishment. It also suggests that the love wouldn't be there – or be quite the same – if the child hadn't made the bed or the grades. (Don't you love your kid in either case?) You can still be excited and happy about the behavior, but avoid communicating that your loving feelings for your child exist because he's doing what pleases you.
"I love you". Period.
Provided by:S Padma Priya