Teach your kids what Real Love is and what conditional love is. Then you can teach them about falling in love so they won't be deceived and distracted.
Timestamps:
00:00 A nine-year-old tells her mother she is in love with a boy at school.
01:40 It is the holy grail of emotional experience and we must be prepared to talk about it.
04:00 The first step is listening then reflecting what you see.
06:20 Example of conversation that is lovingandteaching and teaches the child about real relationships
Transcript:
A mother wrote and said, “My nine-year-old daughter, Eliza, came home and said, ‘I’m in love with Brent,’ who is a boy at school. I had no idea what to say.”
When a Child Says They are In Love
Every day parents all over the world hear statements like this from children ages nine through forty-nine. Almost immediately parents reveal that they have no idea how to respond. Little wonder, since parents have been around long enough to know the innumerable disappointments and even catastrophes that follow those words, “in love.”
Almost every divorce or disastrous relationship begins with a fervent, sincere, and often heart-pounding phenomenon known as “falling in love.” But then comes real life, which with its whirlwind of activities, pressures, and distractions reveals whether we know what love even means.
Cinderella falls in love with the prince, but then they begin to argue over whatever—repairs on the castle, new shoes for the horses, taking the kids to school, the usual stuff. They get divorced, and their kids become entitled and spend their lives watching YouTube and posting pictures on Instagram and Facebook. Not a fairy tale ending.
Our children see “falling in love” on screen in some form nearly every day. And their friends talk about it. And Facebook and other media depict it everywhere. It’s the Holy Grail of emotional experiences. So we MUST be prepared to talk about this subject.
Parents Unprepared to Teach About Being In Love
With sufficient life experience, most of us learn that “falling in love” is very much like being drunk and insane at the same time. We’ve also learned that talking to a drunk or a lunatic is singularly unproductive, so we are dumbfounded when “I’m in love” is spoken by the lips of our children. And our confusion—along with their delirium—differs only in degree and complexity whether the child is nine years old or forty-nine.
This is a pretty tough position for parents, yes? Very few parents understand or have ever felt unconditional love, but now they’re faced with a child drunk on the kind of Imitation Love that is earned and traded throughout the world every day—the kind of “love” that does not end well.
In short, parents are spectacularly unprepared for a conversation with a child who is utterly convinced of the reality of this “love” they describe. They’re sitting at the wheel of a car they can’t wait to accelerate to breathtaking speed ... while they’re falling-down drunk. Tough place for both parent and child.
How to Teach a Child About Falling in Love
We parents need help. Whew, there IS help. Remember, it’s all about loving and teaching, not controlling or arguing or enabling or sympathizing or encouraging or discouraging. No, none of that, just lovingandteaching.
First Step
What is the first step in loving? LISTENING.
So, back to Eliza, who is certain that she is in love. The certitude of a nine-year-old can be unnerving. I’m going to help you take Mom’s place—just to make it more personal—and you say something like this to her:
“Oh no, honey, you’re not really in love.” While there is some truth to that, Eliza will immediately disconnect from you, and you are finished as a parent—at least in that moment.
OR you say:
“That’s really sweet, honey. I’m happy for you.” But now you’re enabling your child in a lie, and again you’re done as a parent because you’re trying to love without teaching. You’re comforting and winning approval, not really loving. Doesn’t work.
So, what CAN you say? You can LISTEN (love) and TEACH her what she desperately needs to know about love and couldn’t possibly understand. Teach her what parents do not teach their children because they don’t know how.
Say something like, “You sound excited.” You’re not lying, and by listening to her FEELINGS, immediately you have Eliza’s full attention without discouraging or enabling her. This is clean and intimate listening.
At this point, it’s likely that she’ll gush a bit, and you’ll say something like, “Tell me what you like about Brent.”
Eliza will not have difficulty answering this, so you’ve just facilitated a real conversation where you can listen and possibly teach. She might say, for example, “He’s so cute.”
You: I’ll bet he IS cute. And it’s fun to look to just at him, isn’t it?
Eliza nods vigorously.
You: What else do you like about him?
Eliza: He’s funny.
You: Tell me something he says that’s funny.
Eliza will be only too happy to do that, and you will acknowledge that he’s clever and witty.
You: What else?
Eliza: He talks to me.
You lift your brows and smile brightly while you say, “It’s REALLY fun when somebody likes you, isn’t it?”
Eliza giggles and says, “Yeah.”
Second Step: Teaching About Love
You: I’m going to teach you something about love. It will be fun, and it will make you sooo smart. Do you know whether Brent is nice to his sister? Is he sweet to her?
Eliza: Uh, well . . .
You: You’ve probably never seen him with his sister, right?
Eliza shakes her head.
You: Do you know whether he listens to his mother? Does he eagerly do what she tells him to do?
Eliza grimaces. She doesn’t know the answer for sure, but she has heard him talk about his mother in a disrespectful way.
You: Do you know if he’s mean to his brother?
More head shaking. She doesn’t know for sure, but she’s heard him make fun of his younger brother.
You: So there’s quite a bit that you don’t know about him, right?
Eliza shrugs. She’s in love, you’re being a bit of a buzz kill, and kids don’t like admitting stuff when it could lead them into a trap.
You: Do I know all those things about you? Do I know how you treat your brother, your sister, and me?
Eliza: Yes.
You: Do I know about almost all your mistakes? Do I know when you’re kind and unkind, when you’re helpful and when you’re selfish? Do I know a LOT about you?
Eliza nods.
You: So, when I say that I love you, I can really mean it, can’t I? I can say that I know you from head to toe, and I CARE ABOUT YOUR HAPPINESS. THAT is what Real Love is, caring about the happiness of ANOTHER PERSON, not just liking how they make YOU feel. I LIKE how ice cream feels, but I don’t LOVE it, even though people use that word like that all the time. I love all of you, and I teach you because I care about your happiness. I love you. Yes?
Nodding.
You: Can you say all that about Brent? Can you say that you know everything good about him, and all the selfish stuff, and everything else, and you care about HIS happiness?
Eliza frowns. She’d never thought of all this, especially if you’ve never taught her this before.
You continue, with a tone that MUST be gentle and loving, not lecturing or correcting:
"So it would be true for me to say that I LOVE YOU, which means I care about your happiness no matter what. You really, really LIKE some things about Brent. You like it that he’s cute, and that he’s funny, and especially that he likes YOU. That’s all very fun for you.
Liking vs Loving
"And it’s called LIKING him, or liking things ABOUT him. Liking is different from loving. “Loving” means you really KNOW somebody and care about THEM. “Liking” means that you ENJOY how they make YOU feel.
"You really, really like how Brent makes you feel. That’s okay. You just didn’t know that it’s called LIKING him, not being “in love” with him.
"Before you can be “in love” with somebody, you have to get to know them really well, and really LOVE them first—care about them—like I did with your father.
"Someday you will get to know somebody really well, you’ll learn to love them, and you might fall in love. Right now, you need practice learning to love.
"You could love your brother better. Love your sister. Learn to love people who aren’t being especially nice to you. Loving all those people will give you practice loving so you’ll be ready to fall in love some day. Really."
Teaching Opportunities to Explain Love
After that conversation, you’ll have many, many opportunities to explain liking and loving.
You’ll have many opportunities to point out to your child when they’re feeling loved by you, when they’re being loving toward someone else, and when they’re being responsible.
You’ll point out when they’re feeling truly happy, and you’ll explain how those moments prepare them for loving a partner in the future.
These are very big, very important teaching opportunities.
Start Teaching Them About Love While They are Young
The conversation we just had—you just had—with Eliza isn’t that much different from how you’ll talk to your 12-year-old or 16-year-old. I can tell you that the earlier you have these conversations, the easier they are to have.
If you try to have this conversation with your thirty-year-old child after a failed marriage or two, it’s very unlikely that you will succeed.
Teach your kids right now what Real Love is, what conditional love is, what it means to be entertained by external appearances, humor, fun, and excitement, and teach them how those things can completely distract us from the possibility of genuine happiness.
We MUST prepare them, or they will be deceived. They will get lost, and that is no fun.
If we truly love our children, we can’t allow them to be deceived and distracted. I trust that you won’t.
Teach them what is really happening in relationships, which nobody does. This lovingandteaching is a great challenge, but it’s also great fun. And it happens to be life saving.
Enjoy the power of loving and teaching.
