Unconditional Love:
The First Foundation Stone of Proactive Parenting Resources for Family and Parenting >>
Real love is unconditional. The foundation of a genuinely meaningful relationship with a child is unconditional love, for only this will nurture a child emotionally and spiritually. Only unconditional love can ensure that a child will not be plagued with immature anger, resentment, guilt, depression, anxiety, and insecurity. For only unconditional love places the needs of the child first. Unconditional love is the vital element of the first foundation stone of proactive parenting. In my thirty years of working with families, I have never found an exception to the following principle of child rearing: It is impossible to correctly discipline children unless our primary relationship with them is one of unconditional love [author’s emphasis]. Today, many "experts" are trying to persuade parents to go against this truth. Some are urging parents to relate to children primarily with punishment. Others are trying to persuade them to use behavior modification—but almost never calling it what it is. Using punishment, such as spanking or pinching, or using B. Mod. as the primary way to relate to children, will result in disaster for both parent and children somewhere in the future. Both of these techniques focus only on behavior, without first taking care of the children’s emotional and spiritual needs. Employing this reactive parenting approach to parenting can appear to yield some success for a while, but eventually both parents and children will have problems which could have been prevented if the children’s need had been met first. Your child needs nurture. Without unconditional love, you will find it nearly impossible to understand your child’s behavior or to deal with that behavior. Unconditional love is a guiding beacon for you as a parent. Without it, you are operating in the dark, lacking and comforting landmarks. You can then easily lose your way and become confused, because you do not know how to deal with your child or with difficult situations. Unconditional love will give you the landmarks to know where you are with you child and how you can best handle all situations, including discipline. Only with a foundation of unconditional love can you find the balance between being too harsh and too permissive or lenient. Only with unconditional love will you keep your child’s respect. Only unconditional love enables you to meet your child’s needs consistently and also prevents parenting from becoming a frustrating and confusing burden. Unconditional love means loving a child no matter what. No matter what the child’s abilities, assets, looks, or personality traits. No matter who the child may remind you of. No matter the history surrounding him. No matter what you expect of him. And, most difficult of all, no matter what his behavior happens to be---no matter how he acts. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you always like his behavior. It means that you always love the child, even when you may detest the behavior. Unconditional love is an ideal parents want to continually strive for. Only God can truly love unconditionally. Only He can always love us when we do not deserve to be loved. As parents we cannot fully achieve this, but we can love our children most of the time. The closer we come to the ideal, the better parents we will be. When our children were young, I wish Pat and I could have said, "We love our children all the time, regardless of anything else, including their behavior." But, like all parents, we could not. And yet, we can give ourselves credit for having tried to attain the wonderful goal of loving them unconditionally. You may find it helpful to remind yourself of the same things Pat and I often had to remember about our children: They are children. They will tend to act like children. Much childish behavior is unpleasant. If I do my part as a parent and love them, despite their childish behavior, they will be able to mature and give up their childish ways. If I love them only when they please me (conditional love) and convey my love to them only during those times, they will not feel genuinely loved. This, in turn, will make them feel insecure, damage their self-esteem, and actually prevent them from moving on to better self-control and mature behavior. Therefore, their behavior and its development is my responsibility as much as theirs. If I love them unconditionally, they will feel good about themselves and be comfortable with themselves. They will then be able to control their anxiety and, in turn, their behavior, as they grow into adulthood. If I love them when they meet my requirements or expectations, they will feel incompetent. They will believe that it is fruitless to do their best because it is never enough. Insecurity and anxiety will plague them and be constant hindrances to their emotional and behavioral growth. During those years as a struggling parent, for my sake and the sake of my sons and daughter, I prayed that my love for my children would be as unconditional as I could make it. The future of my children depended on this foundation. So does the future of your children. Reprinted from Relational Parenting by Ross Campbell, M.D. ©2000 by Ross Campbell. Used by permission of Moody Press. [ISBN No. 0-8024-6393-2]
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