Last week, my five year old daughter went into complete melt-down at the dinner table. Following an altercation with her younger sister over who should get the bigger piece of corn-on-the-cob, she was nearly hysterical and sobbed, “Daddy doesn’t think I’m special!” At the end of a tiring week in 1st grade and various extra-curricular activities, I knew this was her exhaustion speaking, but it still made me stop and think.

Children are so fragile. They need so much encouragement. If you have independent kids like I do, it is so easy to forget how much they need you when they’re constantly trying to tell you that they don’t. In the day to day ‘trying to get by’ it is so easy to let moments slip by when you can show and/or tell your kids how much they mean to you and how important they are. Here are five ideas to help you do just that.

1. Put down what you’re doing to listen to your child when they’re talking to you, and make eye contact.This can be easier said than done sometimes, but it shows how much you respect your child and also models good communication skills to them.
2. If you have more than one child, make sure to make one-on-one time for each of them. Even if it’s only a walk or drive around the neighborhood, a half an hour of uninterrupted time with them will show them that they are the most important thing in the world to you for that period of time.
3. Put a note in their lunchbox or schoolbag telling them how much you love them and how special they are.
4. Buy or make your child a special greeting card, just because. Send it in the post, complete with stamp.
5. Make a ‘Jar of Loves’ for each child. Choose a container of some kind, (we will be doing this this week and using recycled jam jars). Decorate them with each child’s name (you could do this as a project together and let them help with the decorating) Every day write down on a piece of paper something that you love about them or that they have done well and put it in the jar. At the end of the week, have a special time set aside to read all of the ‘Loves’ they have received that week. You may want to have a larger container in their room where they can store all of the ‘Loves’ and can read them anytime they are feeling low.

I hope some of these ideas help you to show your children how special they are. It is one of our greatest responsibilities as parents to build confidence and self-worth in them. The time and trouble you spend to do this will be worth far more to them than the most expensive toy or clothes that you could ever buy for them. They will thank you for the rest of their lives.

(photo by Magz Parmenter)