You may think it is completely unnecessary and redundant to tell parents that they must love their children. It is obvious — everyone knows that. The truth, however, is that many young people who end up with psychologists, counsellors, and therapists have a lack of love as their greatest problem. Parents are usually very surprised to hear that this is precisely their child’s problem. Parents experience a feeling of love for their children, while children experience that their parents do not love them. Somewhere between the parents’ emotion in their hearts and what the same parent’s child experiences, there is a huge gap. I myself have worked with dozens of young people who experience this gap deeply and intensely. The consequences are sometimes deep rejection of the people who live closest to them.
Parents must realise that love is a verb — it is something you do. Love is something that is lived, not felt. Children want to see and experience love before they will experience that someone loves them. The first and most common way to ensure that a child experiences love is to say it. The Lord has blessed every father and mother with a tongue to bless others. No person can function or live a happy, full life without love — even more so a child. They want and need to hear regularly that you love them. Why is it so easy to scold or criticise children, and yet so difficult to say that you love them? If you struggle to say it directly, use a card, note, email, or SMS — just say it.
Furthermore, parents must show love tangibly and physically to their children. For many parents, it is easier to hand out punishment than to embrace a child. Children long for hugs — in other words, the physical demonstration of love. Long before a child can understand the concept of love, he experiences love through affection and touch. Use your hands and arms to love your children.
The easiest, but in today’s time also one of the most difficult gestures of love, is to play with your children. It is difficult because parents’ lives are so rushed and they have little time to play. Make time to play with your children and be assured they will experience love. Wrestle on the floor, run around the house, and splash around in the swimming pool… for a small child, this is love. For a teenager, you must give your time. They spell love T-I-M-E. Do what they enjoy doing and build a bond of love that cannot be bought with money.
The well-known passage about love in the Bible, namely 1 Corinthians 13, describes it so beautifully:
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love!
1 Corinthians 13:13
Written by Johan Smith