What Children Need

The pure delight of a game of “you got me” with a baby

There is a wonderful quote by Pam Leo “Children need at least one person in their life who thinks the sun rises and sets on them, someone who delights in their existence and loves them unconditionally.”

We hope for our children that they will experience more than one person - ideally their parents first and then other people - friends, teachers, and partners, as they travel through life.

I was pretty lucky to have two of the best (in my opinion) grandparents ever created who delighted in me when my parents could not - children can be hard to love unconditionally when we haven’t yet travelled that road of inner healing, they come with all kinds of behaviours especially designed to trigger us to examine the things we would rather keep buried.

As an eternal learner, I have discovered in my studies, that we can not easily replicate for others what we haven’t experienced for ourselves. Having this understanding has helped me enormously in my own healing journey because as an adult I am able to take my learning and really reflect on it. I love being with children, I experience great joy in their curiosity and delight in the world and it is easy for me to delight in their existence. This is only easy for me because it is what I experienced as a young child from somebody. Sure, family life was tough many times, especially during my schooling and adolescent years, and I arrived in my 20’s with a long list of ways my parents “seemingly” failed me (these beliefs were not always true and I’ve spent the last 25 years examining them - I will share some of this in another post) but the love and delight of Nana and Grandad was my constant.

Whether you are a parent, an educator, a grandparent, a family member, a carer, a friend, a partner - whatever your role in the life of another, it is good to reflect on whether this person feels my delight? Do they feel my unconditional love? It can be the one factor that makes the greatest difference in their life. And I can’t end this post without mentioning the need to delight and show unconditional love to ourselves as well - but that too is a topic for later.

Aroha Nui

Carli