Category: Let's talk
What is the most important gift you could give a child apart from love...
I don’t know that any important gift can be given apart from love or else the gift is somehow cheapened and looses value. I think it is more a manner of how the love is expressed. I think there are those adults who think well, if I just give my child some money I’ve done what I need to do… wrong! What a child needs is in my opinion, Quality Time. Yes, I will not deny how as a child I liked it when my folks would give me some spending money but what I treasure in looking back over a lifetime are the moments they would spend in togetherness time with me. When I knew that no matter what was on my mind I could go and talk out any matter with them. I liked it when Dad would say, I don’t have many times the answer to your questions but ask anyhow and together we will search out the answers. It was a relief to know that no matter what difficulty I had came into..Whether getting in a car accident with Dad’s car or getting caught for skipping school that I could go and Dad and I would talk it over but knowing this was the result of all the togetherness time spent with Dad as a child. The Quality Time that my Mama gave to me were times spent walking as a child hand in hand in the great outdoors. All these years later I still can in memory feel the touch of her hand. Then too Mama gave me to enjoy arts on various levels. She would roll up here sleeves and get right into the modeling clay with me for example. Then too the Quality Time spent in the wonderment of hearing Stories told to me. I can remember on Saturday afternoons taking 3 or 4 of my favorite books to her and saying, Please read to me and then when she had completed reading the stories I would say, Read ‘em again to me, please…and Mama would (sometimes I think to myself, How could Mama stand ALL that reading to me for I mean like the same stories over and over again, how boring it must have been at times for her…but then I guess that is the way of love, it is giving of one’s self to another, of meeting another’s needs/desires) whereas with Dad I could late at night crawl up on his lap with my blankie and drift off to sleep as he would tell me stories of far away places and times…………..
When my oldest son was a child in kindergarten he brought home in amongst the papers from his school work a Poem that his teacher was sending home with her students. I so enjoyed it that I attached it to my refrigerator with magnets in the Town House Apartment we were living in at the time. Later when we moved to our home I took the poem with me and for all these now close to 15 years it has remained taped to the inside of a kitchen cupboard… The page is yellowed with age and brittle to the touch…. I will share it now here with you…………………………. MAKE A MEMORY: …..Make a memory with your children, Spend some time to show you care; Toys and trinkets can’t replace those Precious moments that you share. …..Money doesn’t buy real pleasure, It doesn’t matter where you live; Children need your own attention, Something only you can give. …..Childhood’s days pass all too quickly, Happy memories all too few; Plan to do that special something, Take the time to go or do. …..Make a memory with your children, Take the time in busy days; Have some fun while they are growing, Show your love in gentle ways. ….by: Elaine Hardt
I'll go all idealist here and say that in addition to love, children need security, stimulation and encouragement from their parents. That and a stario of course, lol.
security is the next best gift that a child can receive in my oppinion.
Hmmm I'd say freedom to use their imagination,to dream, to make mistakes and learn how to avoid them,but most of all I'd say you are unique, no one else can be you, so never be ashamed of who you are,or where you come from...