Why We Need Strong Relationships With Our Kids
Life is not possible without attachment. We all begin as cells that embed themselves in our biological mother’s womb, with her body providing a warm…
Portfolio Categories: Caring
Sorry, Not Sorry: Saying Sorry You Like You Mean It
“You need to say you’re sorry!” When problems or conflict arise, adults and other children are quick to demand justice by insisting on an apology,…
“Say Sorry!” How Forced Sorry’s Do More Harm Than Good
If you are around a playground or schoolyard long enough you are bound to hear a child or adult say, “You need to say you’re…
Why Should I Care? How to raise caring kids
We take delight watching kids when they are full of caring: from the kindness they show siblings, to helping others out, to paying attention in…
Why Children Need to Give their Hearts to Parents
My 5-year old nephew is in love. He walks around his house and finds each family member and grabs their head firmly in his hands,…
Irreducible Needs: What Kids Must Have to Thrive
Raffi Cavoukian, a children’s singer, songwriter, and child advocate, wrote a song titled – All I really need – which beautifully captures from a child’s perspective their most essential…
Boys Need to Do More Than Cry
The sentiment that boys need to cry is a common cliche but it eclipses a more important truth beneath it. Emotional expression in males is…
Five Things You Might Not Know About Human Emotion
Humans are some of the most complex emotional creatures on earth. From our teenagers who roll their eyes in disdain to our toddlers who cry…
What Do Your New Year’s Intentions Reveal About You?
Love them or hate them, forming new year’s intentions are part of many people’s ritual in leaving one year behind and making way for a…
Why Being Grateful Isn’t Something You Teach
We can command a child to say ‘thank you’ but this won’t ensure that they feel grateful or appreciative towards someone. The place gratitude arises…
How do we nurture a caring spirit in our kids?
Emotions don’t obey the same rules as learning facts or lessons. Emotions happen to us as we are stirred up by our environment and moved to act in a certain way. If we want our children to feel grateful, then we need to consider whether they have caring feelings from which gratitude arises.
A caring spirt is what underlies the capacity to feel warmth, love, and appreciation towards others. What we need to nurture most of all in our kids is a caring spirt but this is not done through lessons, rewards, bribes, or threats. Caring spirits are created by adults who care for a child and form a relationship with them. In other words, a child’s instincts to care about others stems from being cared for by others.
We nourish our kids through our invitation for relationship and by giving them a sense belonging, sameness, significance, caring, being known and being with. Our job is to preserve their hearts so that they can feel vulnerable feelings and be moved by their caring. Hearts can get 
