Developing warmth in your kids
The world runs on love and affection. Like our co-founder Naren tells us, maximum amount of literature in the world is on love! As kids, when we grow up in an atmosphere of love and affection, we tend to be secure, happy individuals. Did you grow up in a warm and affectionate environment? How much warmth and affection do you your kids get to experience from you?
You know what?A warm and loving relationship forms the most important part of your child’s ecosystem. When you respond to your kids with warmth, be gentle and kind to them, you indirectly tell them what kind of people they need to shape into. Your child’s development and the adult that he/she shapes up into, lies in your demeanor and personality.
What to do ensure that your kids turn out to be warm, loving people?
Ensure that you foster loving, nurturing relationships: Kids tend to learn everything from the adults around them, especially from parents. Their relationships shape the way they perceive the ones around them. They learn from how you conduct yourself in your relationships with the people around. It in fact affects all the areas of their development. Through you, your relationships, and the people around, your kids learn about the world.
You know how this happens? It’s through relationships that kids learn to express themselves. They learn to scream, cry, laugh, hug, love and make merry, with people. That’s where they grow. These relationships teach them how to act in the world. How to think, help people, communicate, listen, behave, and show emotions.
So how do you go about your relationships? How do you react, communicate and behave? Your little ones are taking their cues. Their interactions help shape their behavior. This also helps children learn more about the world.
In all this, the most important and first relationship your kids have is with you and other family members. When they have beautiful relationships early on in life, they go on to build similar ones throughout their lives. You spread warmth, they spread warmth.
Build wonderful relationships with your kids: Your interactions with your kids play a major role in teaching them warmth. Are the interactions between you and your kids filled with love and warmth, largely? Because that’s how your kids develop confidence and and communication skills. The way you deal with stress is how your kids will learn to deal with stress. The attitude that you have towards life is the one that your kids will mostly take to. So when you are easy going, warm and loving, your munchkins will eventually be exactly that, unless some other factor goes grossly wrong.
If you and your kids have a strong loving relationship, your kids would be secure individuals. They would be mentally and emotionally stable and strong.
That is why, no matter what, build a warm, positive relationship with your kids. That’s how you will help shape the adult that your kids are growing up to be. So bring on the warmth!
Role play and model: We need to mirror the behavior that we want to see in our kids. If you have very young kids, aged 5 or so, teaching them empathy and warmth through games and play is the easiest way to begin. Ask them to watch out if their pet stuff toy is angry or upset. Teach them to be loving.
As they grow, remember to genuinely model how to forge warm, loving relationships with people. This will go a long way in helping your kids learn what warmth even means.
That’s all there is to it really. But if you have any specific queries on how to help your kids learn warmth and kindness, write to us here. We also love to hear from you and help.
