Ever mess up in life, then with honesty to tell a person what you did.  How do people respond to our acknowledgement of failure or disappointment? How we are responded to is important.  How we are responded to shapes our understanding of being loved in the midst of disappointment. This shaping starts at an early age.  Let me begin by saying children are very loyal and committed to loving and pleasing both parents. Children are also vulnerable emotionally and physically to parental reactions.  When a child fails or frustrates a parent, a parent who communicates love and understanding while working through the failure with kindness and compassion speaks to a child that disappointment doesn’t define who they are. This communication speaks to a child’s heart, “I am loved for who I am, not how well I perform.”

In contrast, when a child fails or goes through disappointment knowing a consistent parental response of criticism, sarcasm, anger, or abandonment of relationship, what does the impact of these parental reactions have upon a child’s emotional life and belief system? The direction a child takes is most often unknown to the parent. Children don’t know how to express their internal world. Because children want the love of their parents, a child will often see an unloving response as their fault.  A child may experience shame, doubt, or fear that they are not loved.  Children are vulnerable and resilient.  Children deal with their vulnerability through the resilience of a belief system hoping to find the love they long to know.  Some children want to please their parents while other kids will defy their parents, (negative attention is better than no attention). Other kids avoid family conflict through isolation or time away with friends.  Strangely, when a child doesn’t know their parent’s love, a child will turn toward what is external to them for the love that is missing. This external pursuit of finding love is draped with scarcity, (I am lacking what it takes to be loved for who I am)

Love grows out of kindness, compassion, understanding, patience, and mindfulness taking place during conflict.   It is important to acknowledge how we fail our children or letting them know how they fail us.  In this genre of relationship hope of  being loved for who we are can grow in the midst of disappointment.