Healthy Loving Parenting

Chapter 11

“Be the person you needed when you were younger.”
– Ayesha Siddiqi

I began to investigate what childhood experiences were ostensibly necessary for me to become an emotionally healthy adult with solid feelings of self-love and self-worth. I discovered what mattered most was not the frequency of verbal expressions of love I heard from my parents, but specific words that many parenting experts considered crucial for me to hear. And just as with countless other men and women, these specific words that I so longed to hear as a little boy and never did, left me feeling insecure, doubting my own value and unable to truly love myself.

In one therapy session I did an exercise I have never forgotten. I was asked to close my eyes, silently visualize myself as a child and then listen as I was read a list of 12 suggested affirmations of unconditional love and acceptance that parents could say to their children from the moment of birth and onward.

12 Parental Affirmations For Children

Welcome to the world I’m glad you’re here.

I’m glad you’re a boy/girl/etc.

You will have all the time you need to get your needs met.

It’s okay to say no.

It’s okay to be angry – I’ll still be here.

It’s okay to be different.

It’s okay to make mistakes.

You don’t have to take care of me.

 It’s okay to ask for help or hugs.

You don’t need to do anything...,

I love you just the way you are.

I will never leave you.

When the reading ended…I cried. I remember thinking: “Are there parents who actually say these things to their children? Wow, I would have loved if my mother and father would have said some of them to me.”

Healthy loving parenting, whether from one’s biological parents, or whomever is fulfilling the role of parenting, instills in a child the unequivocable knowledge and belief that he or she is loved, lovable, worthy, important and that they matter. It is the same Love that is demonstrated in the Herd Dynamics of horses.

I believe raising children with healthy loving parenting that empowers them with self-love and self-worth, is humanity’s most crucial and consequential responsibility. It is only when we can love others with the same compassion as we love ourselves that we will be able, just like horses, to peacefully co-exist with the rest of our species.