Being "Too Nice" to Our Kids

(originally posted Tuesday, March 13, 2007 )

Many parents resist being “too nice” to, or “coddling” their children. “The world is a tough place,” they reason, “and I need to prepare them for it.”
I would argue that this is terribly misguided. We best prepare our children for the tough parts of the world (rather than the monolithically “tough world”), by giving them a foundation of unconditional love, acceptance, and sense of self-worth.
So many people find it difficult to trust, to believe in the possibility of being loved without ulterior motives, or hidden agendas. They find it hard to believe in unconditional love, or unconditional positive regard, never having experienced it themselves. When they experience conditional acceptance, negativity, mistreatment, they don’t feel confident about rejecting this, and seeking something better. Because after all, the world is a tough place, and their role is to suck it up and deal with it.
However, people who were raised with a firm foundation of love and acceptance from their parent(s) have far less tolerance for mistreatment. They will seek an environment in which “tough” is not accepted as a given. They will seek out those people who believe that we can do better than “tough.”
Unconditional love does not mean spoiling your child, nor being a pushover. It means that we respect the personhood of our children, and lovingly accept them as they are, even when they aren’t doing what we want. Even when we are disciplining them.
And for those who have never experienced unconditional love, the quickest way to experience unconditional love is to GIVE it.