As school starts in my neck of the woods today, I thought it would be a good time to talk about how to make your child feel appreciated.
Many of us moms are teary this time of year: our kids are growing up, as each new “first day of school” photo proves. And we start wondering: “am I doing a good job? Do my kids truly know that I love them?”
Lacey Hauptman sent me this post on 10 ways to help your child feel appreciated, and I thought today would be a great day to run it and remind us how to build those strong relationships so kids know that our love is rock solid.
Here’s Lacey:
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
Instilling discipline and good values in your child while making him feel loved can be quite tricky. You may not notice it, but in trying to make them godly and morally upright, sometimes you end up being more critical than nurturing. I know for a fact that I have been guilty of this more often than I’d like to admit. Despite our better judgment, sometimes we parents are quicker to spot mistakes than we are when it comes to praising and showing appreciation for our kids.
Parents should balance this out by regularly making children feel that their efforts, skills, talents, and opinions are being noticed and appreciated as well. It’s healthier for their self-esteem and emotional wellbeing.
Follow the suggestions below to ease yourself into becoming more appreciative of your child:
1. Listen to your children
Most kids can be talkative, and when they talk they tend to gravitate toward topics that may not necessarily interest some grown-ups. Because of this, most parents tend to disregard what their kids say as “nonsense.”
If this sounds like something you may have been unconsciously doing, then for starters, you need to learn how to listen attentively to your child. Know that there’s a fine line between listening and hearing. Just because they are young, doesn’t mean that what they have to say is any less important. Make your child feel that what he has to say is valuable. Don’t brush him off in favor of work or other responsibilities. Or if you really can’t talk at the moment, tell your child nicely that you’ll talk to him soon when you’re done with work. The key here is to still make him feel like you care, and that what he has to say matters to you.
Listening to your kid’s stories is also a good way to get to know him. Treasure the days that your child still tells you about his day. You’ll miss it when he gets older.
2. Encourage self-expression
When your child does something that goes against your idea of the “perfect” son or daughter, it’s easy to go berserk and feel bad for not raising them properly. The next time this happens, try to reflect on what your child is trying to express instead of immediately judging him. He may actually have a point. Letting your child know that he can always open up to you about what he feels, positive or negative, will foster a strong bond between you two that he will carry through to adulthood.
3. Allow him to pursue his interests
My husband is a photographer, and he loves to take pictures of our family. As a result, our son became interested in photography at the early age of six. He begged us to get him his very own camera for his seventh birthday (which was a few months ago), and obviously we couldn’t get him a professional DSLR like the one his dad uses. But after doing some research on kid-friendly cameras and shopping around online, we eventually got him a sturdy Nikon point-and-shoot for him to practice with.
If your child is interested in a certain hobby, don’t discourage him just because he is young. If he your child wants to try painting, encourage him to do so. If your child is into music, enroll him in a music class. There are a ton of ways you can support your kid and show him that you appreciate his interest in honing his talents and skills.
4. Praise your kid for a job well done
To praise or not to praise? Much debate has been going around on whether praise is good or bad for a child. Some say that giving children too much praise and encouragement may lead to a sense of entitlement and an overestimation of their talents and abilities—some may even grow up into narcissists. But as with everything, the key here is balance. Remember when you were a child and you wanted so bad to be recognized for your achievements? Your child wants the same, too.
There’s nothing wrong with giving children constructive criticism, but it is important to give adequate, well-deserved praise as well.
5. Hug more often
The power of a parent’s touch doesn’t end after your child grows past the infant stage. Believe it or not, hugging your child often can do wonders in making him feel comforted and secured. Does your child find hugging awkward? A pat on the back or on the head would suffice.
6. Go on dates with your child
Source: McDonald’s Australia YouTube Channel
When my son doesn’t have school, I sometimes take him with me when I run my errands. And afterwards, we’d drive to the nearest ice cream shop and reward ourselves with a banana split or a mint chocolate chip cone. Lately, however, his favorite mother-son dates involve going to the park or the beach to do little photo shoots with his new camera, with me serving obligingly as his model.
Memories of your bonding moments together will stay in your child’s heart forever. Spend some time with your child whenever you can. If possible, let him pick what he wants to do. Or just like in the video above, take your child out to eat his favorite food. You don’t have to do anything fancy. Just let your kid have your undivided attention. He will surely appreciate that.
7. Say “I love you”
This may be hard to do when you grew up in a non-affectionate family. But it’s never too late to start making changes in your own home. Even if your child grows up to the point where he cringes at the thought of hearing his parent say “I love you,” he would still appreciate that you do.
8. Keep your word
Just as you would honor your word with your friends and colleagues, do the same with your child. He will respect you more if you know how to keep your promises. And if you won’t be able to follow through, explain why. Even if you feel that your child is too young to understand, it’s still better than not saying anything.
9. Do little favors for your child
Or sneak in small surprises for him when you can. A special surprise treat (along with a sweet little note) in his lunch box or a day off from doing chores just because can go a long way in making your child feel special and loved.
10. Allow your child to take part in family decisions
Most parents tend to make all the decisions for the household. And while this usually makes sense with younger kids, it’s a whole other story when the kids are older and able to comprehend such decisions. My parents left me and my siblings out of any decision making until we were well into our early twenties, and it made us feel that they did not think we were mature enough to understand or comprehend whatever was going on. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional on their part to make us feel a certain way, but of course it would have been better if we had been included.
Except for sensitive matters, there’s no harm in letting your child take part in your family’s decision-making. This will empower your child and make him feel that his opinion is valued and that he is a vital part of the family.
Making your child feel appreciated early on in life can have dramatic effects in the way he views himself and the world. So don’t hold off on the appreciation. Show your child that you value what he is and what he can become as a person.
Lacey Hauptman is a freelance writer, graphic designer, and stay-at-home mom, as well as an animal lover, a frustrated fashionista, a hopeless romantic, and a Harry Potter nerd. When she’s not fulfilling her wife and mom duties, she enjoys reading YA fiction (which she’s probably too old for) or writing stories, poems, essays, and more.
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
Wonderful topic! This is an area that I’m wrestling through right now as a mom, especially with my oldest son, who is 7. Since he was about 3 years old, he has had a total fascination with electricity, generating electricity, and especially nuclear power. A common topic of conversation with him is new ways that he’s going to develop to generate power when he’s a grown-up. Some of them are rational and have been thought of by great minds before him (such as somehow harnessing power from lightening bolts), and others are a bit more outlandish (build a nuclear power plant out in space so that if a nuclear meltdown occurs, the effects won’t reach earth), but electricity is always on his mind. What I’ve struggled with however, is how do I nurture that interest without over-stepping it and making a big deal out of him being “gifted”? He has often had praise showered on him at school for being “smart,” because he thinks that way, reads a good bit above grade level, and has a large vocabulary. Other people who know us also have commented on his “smart” ness. My husband and I, however, are afraid of the effect that all that praise could have on him. I was very much like him as a child. I was continually told how smart I was and all it ever did for me convince me that I was better than other children. I was even put in a gift and talented program at school when I reached 4th grade, but in retrospect, I question the value of such programs. In the end, I graduated from college and became a nurse and nearly fell flat on my face from the real pressures and demands of my job. I was suddenly no longer the cream of the crop, and instead for a little while lagged behind other new nurses at learning to effectively manage the workload. That was almost 7 years ago, and by God’s grace, I have since learned how to do my job well and with a heart to serve the Lord, but my early experience as an RN did much to shatter my sense of pride.
So with our oldest son, my husband and I have been wary of showering too much praise on him. Sometimes I think we’re probably overshooting the mark. When he presents a new idea, we challenge him with the thought that, “somebody has probably already thought of that before you, and if you want to come up with good ideas, you need to learn from others who are already working on it.” I do confess we’ve been known to have breakfast table discussions on why his newest idea violates the laws of chemistry and won’t work. I hope we’re instilling humility in him and helping him see the need to study the work of others, but sometimes we probably need to stop and encourage his ingenuity.
Has anyone else ever thought through this sort of thing? If so, do you have any advice on how to value and appreciate your child’s interests and ideas without over-doing it?
I’m a mechanical engineer in my 20s. I’m not married, neither do I have kids, but in a way, I was quite similar to your son when growing up – I was into mechanical hardware and stuff. So I can speak from the child’s, and now, the engineer’s point of view.
First, it is good that you are trying to find ways to nurture this interest, rather than shutting it off. Having a fascination with electricity isn’t bad, it’s better than the whole range of nastier stuff out there trying to ensnare your kids. If properly nurtured, this interest could well help propel your son to a job in the future – e.g. engineer, technician, energy policy analyst and so on.
You could use the pursuit of electricity as a means to learn life skills and other values – he simply learns the values along the way, while pursuing his interest in electricity.
Your plan of action would mainly revolve on whether your son is the hands on or the conceptual, abstract sort. Either way, it is important to develop these 2 sides, and also you want to ensure that this interest does not become an obsessive interest that drowns out development in other areas (if so, it would be very hard to mix around with people and find a mate later!).
Based on what you’ve said, he seems like the conceptual, abstract sort of stuff, so we can start with that first. His interest can evolve over time – I was building dangerous stuff as a teen, and now years later I chose the area of engineering that I’m now in because I saw it was most relevant to the mission field.
Later on, as your son gets older, you can start giving him practical examples. If you have a hands on husband or other such friends that you trust to keep him safe, get him to teach your son in electrical work and later involve him in it – changing switches, replacing a blown fuse, etc. I myself learned fixing toilets and stuff from my dad.
There is a certain value about practical training: your kid will learn that you need time, effort and patience to master some things, that you will make mistakes, and that in the interest of safety these mistakes will be pointed out and immediate corrective action must be taken. Electricity doesn’t argue –you can’t argue your way out of getting electrocuted. This approach kills multiple birds with one stone – helps with father-son bonding too, and extra help to clear the honey-do list is always good.
As he progresses on, get him (or sponsor) his own set of tools and get him to take responsibility for some of the electrical repairs etc. It shows you trust him, gives him something to be proud of, and gets him to take ownership of it. Trust me, men cherish their tools very well.
If he is the sort to ask “Why” for a lot of stuff, that is excellent. Schools purport to teach “critical thinking”, parents pay a lot to try to get their kids inculcated in it, but really there is no substitute for just asking “Why” and then building a store of knowledge in the process. The only thing to take note is that you must not force conclusions down his throat, but guide him so that he arrives to the conclusion himself so that he will be convinced of it himself.
If your son is more conceptual and less hands on, you could do case studies: e.g.
– Engineering ethics cases such as https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/more/engineering-ethics/engineering-ethics-cases/electrical-engineering-cases/
– Enron – honesty pays
– Guide him through the process of a decision making and considering stake holders by getting him to compare the suitability of different types of power plants for a place: nuclear power, wind power, natural gas plant- and guide him through the considerations of the decision makers involved.
Of course, case studies are not easy and you might require help from others. If you have friends who are like analysts, economics, working in policymaking or so on, you could use their help.
I hope what I’ve written is helpful. If you have more queries, feel free to ask Sheila for my email and drop me a message.
I love all this , and for sure i am going to apply it in my life immediately.