Train up a child…

Love is Kind

At this time of year with Valentine’s Day on our minds, our thoughts naturally turn to love. What is the real meaning of love?

This word is bantered around and used very casually, yet the true definition of love points out to us how we often fall short of really loving others as we should.

Real love requires effort on our part to demonstrate the characteristics that must be present to honestly say that we love someone. Love wants the best for someone else at the sacrifice of our own wants and desires. Love requires kindness to others. The quality of respect goes along with being kind.

Why is it that adults often think that they should show respect and kindness to other adults, yet they seem to overlook the children? Have you ever noticed how adults may stand and talk about children right in front of them as though the child did not hear what they were saying? We would not do that to another adult. Why do we do it to children? It is unkind and often embarrassing to a child to be talked about in such a manner. Comments overheard at these times can affect children for the rest of their lives.

I remember an incident that well demonstrates how children can be affected by adult conversations in their presence. When we were young, my mom would dress up my four sisters and me every Saturday and take us to Monett, MO, shopping. She prided herself in the little starched feedsack dresses she would make for us. On one Saturday, a lady came up to her in the J.C. Penney store and started talking to her. “Ethel,” she said, “I don’t know how you do it. All of your little girls always look so pretty…every one of them.” We all stood there feeling so very wonderful as she continued to exclaim about how pretty we were. After a little more visiting, she got ready to move on. As she was leaving, she looked down at me and said, “Ethel is this one yours, too? She doesn’t look like the rest of them.” For years, I felt like the “ugly duckling” of the family.

Innocent remarks can greatly affect a child. We need to give more thought to our words and actions in front of children. It is a good feeling to watch the pastor of the church my husband and I previously attended as he always made a point to shake hands with the children as well as the adults. It was not unusual to see him walking along with an arm around a child and talking to that child with the same level of importance as that given to adults. This is the way it should be.

The elderly President Bush once remarked, “Let’s make this a kinder and gentler nation.” That kindness and gentleness, as well as respect for others, begins within each of us. If children are raised with these qualities of love, they are more apt to express them when they are grown, resulting in a kinder and gentler nation.