December 08, 2006

Send a Constant Message of Unconditional Love

There Is No Switch to Turn On "Quality Time"

There is a fallacy afoot in the world. It is the statement that, "We give quality time to our kids." Baloney! It is impossible to turn on quality time. We adults can't turn on quality time with each other and it is even more impossible to do it with our children. There is TIME, period! There is not a person alive who owns the switch for turning on quality time.
Science and research have told us very little about how mankind learns language. It is still quite a mystery just exactly how humans acquire language and how we are able to use it in such a universally powerful manner. However, there are a few things that we do know.

All Humans Speak a Language

First, all humans in every culture speak some sort of language. In France, people speak French. In China, people speak Chinese. In Japan, people speak Japanese. In Mexico, people speak Spanish. In The United States, people predominantly speak English. There are as many languages as there are cultures.

Second, it is even quite easy to identify a region of a country by the particular accent used by the people of one culture who live in different areas. “Y’all c’mon back and see us!” can distinguish a person as being from a Southern State, while “Paak your Caa!” can just as easily identify a person as being from a region in the Northeastern United States! Ending a sentence with “Hey,” can just as easily identify one as being from North Dakota, Wisconsin or a country known as Canada!

We All Speak the Language We are Exposed To!

But here is the final and most important thing that we know about the learning of language; acquisition of language is not genetically determined. Take a French child and raise her in a Japanese home and she will speak Japanese. Raise a Japanese child in a Chinese home and he will speak Chinese. Raise American twins in a Japanese home and they will both speak Japanese but separate them at birth and raise one in Japan and one in Mexico and you will find two kids that look identical but speak different languages; one speaking Japanese and the other speaking Spanish!
We speak the language that we are exposed to! Language is a learned behavior. We learn the language that we hear!

Love Is a Language

I will propose to you that Love is a language! If we are not exposed to it, we will not speak it! 29 years in the American Public Schools has taught me that there are many kids being raised in our country who do not speak the language of love. What I mean by this is that I found that telling a child of 15 that you care about him/her could often not be understood because the child does not speak that language. I might as well have told the child something in a foreign language because it is just as difficult for the child to understand.

If we wish to have our children speak the language of love, we must expose them to that language, daily!

Over the next few days I will be writing about some of the key methods that parents can use to send messages of love to their children.

Stay tuned!

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