Loving Your Kids: Your Love is Enough.

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Being a parent is a challenge; parents are the most critical of themselves and often lose sight of the impact of simply loving their kids.

You really want to make it home for dinner, but a last-minute issue kept you at work. You would like to volunteer more at the school, sit and play dress-up, or have a tea party with your little one on a Sunday afternoon, but for several reasons, the reality of your day clashes with your wishes.

There may be a long list of things you want to and wish you could do, but you must stop to applaud yourself for the ways you do show love to your kids.

Needs of the Children

All a child needs from you and asks of you is love and to know that you see them. The year 2020 has turned all of our lives upside down in one form or another. I had planned to take my kids on a short trip over the Thanksgiving break, but as COVID-19 numbers began to spike, we canceled the trip out of an abundance of caution.

Our Thanksgiving break was filled with baking, cooking, basketball, football at the park, zip-lining, assembling one thousand-piece puzzles, etc. But I agonized over not doing enough to give my kids a good Thanksgiving break.

I lost sight of the things that I was doing well. I lost sight of the excitement my kids showed when mixing dough for cookies. The sparkle in their eyes when they woke up and realized that I was not going to work but instead would be available to them all day.

Parents place so much pressure on themselves to be the greatest parents on earth. We agonize over what could and should be but fail to appreciate and give ourselves kudos for what is.

You are doing enough.

What do you make of your daily efforts? What do you make of the laundry you do? The homework you help with, the breakfast, lunch, and dinner you make? What do you make of the kisses, the hugs, the visits to the park, the storytime? The walks? The kisses on a scraped knee…the “I Love yous’.”

Give yourself a break because simply showing up and smiling each day and showing love is all the kids want. If you cannot volunteer at school because you have a busy work schedule. Thank God for the job because it enables you to provide for the kids. Insert your list here ____________…but let’s consider what you do well daily and have done well as a parent.