This Journal features a short writing about the value of raising children in a loving environment. This is the antidote to problems of shame, guilt, and self hatred covered in the previous Journal.
About the author, Walker Larson…”Before becoming a freelance journalist and culture writer, Walker Larson taught literature and history at a private academy in Wisconsin, where he resides with his wife and daughter. He holds a master’s in English literature and language, and his writing has appeared in The Hemingway Review, Intellectual Takeout, and his Substack, The Hazelnut. He is also the author of two novels, Hologram and Song of Spheres.”
What Children Remember and How to Give Them a Childhood Worth Remembering
Similarly, the Harvard Study of Adult Development—the longest study on human happiness ever conducted—revealed that relationship strength was a stronger predictor of long-term health and happiness than anything else, including money, social status, and genetics. The foundation for close relationships throughout life is laid in childhood.
A Stable Foundation
Across a number of metrics happy childhoods lead to happier and healthier adults. This can be daunting for parents because a lot seems to depend on the quality of childhoods they offer their children. That said, a difficult childhood or negative childhood experiences don’t doom someone to a difficult adulthood. Many children recover from childhood difficulties and go on to have happy adulthoods.
How do parents create positive childhood experiences and warm relationships with their children in a beneficial way that they will remember?
What sticks has less to do with specific events or perfectly planned activities and a lot more to do with the home’s overall atmosphere and the cumulative emotional impact of many different activities and events.
“Kids don’t necessarily remember everything that happens during their childhood, but what they remember most often has more to do with how it made them feel versus what actually happened,” Jordyn Koveleski Gorman, pediatric speech-language pathologist and founder of Eat Play Say, told The Epoch Times.
Many early memories get lost or muddled after childhood amnesia sets in around age 7. At this point, children begin to forget their earliest memories. But the consistent presence of a loving face, familiar routines, and joyful encounters—these generally remain with the child, at least as an overall impression. And they outweigh a single euphoric—or disturbing—experience in childhood.
Three specific types of experiences have staying power, according to Reid-Vanas: formative experiences involving relationship and belonging; routines and rituals that bond people and build family identity; and time outside in nature, experiencing the world. Experiences related to identity development are especially likely to be remembered as children move into adolescence, and are important for that reason.
“The most formative memories are relational, and they’re more so about connection rather than activities, vacations, outings, parties, or other one-off activities,” Gorman wrote. “What really shapes kids is having parents and people around them that are fully present in their lives.”
Limited by Love, Not Money
This is good news for families who have fewer material resources to offer their children than they would like. Expensive trips or activities aren’t the core of a happy childhood. Rarely does the quality of the childhood or the formative power of memories depend on the family’s financial status or the number of their extracurricular activities. Happiness depended on whether the child felt safe, if home was rejuvenating, and whether people in the child’s life were present, loving, and understanding.
A happy childhood isn’t a fairy tale childhood where nothing ever went wrong and parents made no mistakes. “The first few minutes after a child wakes up and the last few before bed shape their sense of well-being more than almost anything in between,” Gorman emphasized. “You don’t have to get the whole day, every day completely right for your kids to say ‘I had a good childhood.’”
Childhood experiences often have lifelong effects, which should instill in parents a sense of the responsibility they bear, but also the opportunity before them. Parents can take heart to know that having a lot of money, a lot of fancy trips, or protecting their child from every unpleasant experience isn’t necessary. More important is the (sometimes much harder) work of showing up day in and day out as a steady, reassuring, encouraging, and loving presence in the child’s life.
If that is accomplished, then the whole childhood will blend into one happy memory.
Crestone and Beyond
A reliable and concise description of what children learn, and then live out, was penned by Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D, (1924-2005), a writer and family counselor. She wrote this famous bit of child rearing wisdom in 1954, when she was 30 years old.
Children Learn What They Live
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
Any parent can read these words, reflect on their own life for validation of the veracity of the statements, and then practice applying the wisdom to how they parent their own children.
There are a few past Journals on this website which offer supporting information and perspective to the words above.
- Parenting, Part II
- Parenting, Part III
- Adverse Childhood Events
- The Beginning of Life, Heart Electromagnetics, Part IV
- A Mother’s Day Attack of Common Sense
- Happiness vs. Joy
- Heart Based Consciousness
Better parenting leads to happier and more well adjusted children who turn into positive contributors in this world.
The world improves in degrees, one wholesome child at a time.
Thanks for reading.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond