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Do they even know what love is?
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<blockquote data-quote="Mikey" data-source="post: 29077" data-attributes="member: 3579"><p><strong>Do they even know what love is?</strong> </p><p></p><p>At their age, and with their limited (and often skewed) life experience, probably not. But not knowing what love is isn't the same as not loving someone. For most of us, we only feel loved when love is expressed in a meaningful way.</p><p></p><p>I learned this the hard way from my son (difficult child 2). He shows almost no emotion, and, being mostly Italian, that's almost a dagger to my heart. One day, he and I were having it out and I asked him if he liked the cruddy relationship we had.</p><p></p><p>He said "I didn't know our relationship was cruddy".</p><p></p><p>The argument (and the story) went on for a while from there, but the end result was that difficult child 2 told me that it was a real effort for him to even give the little bit of emotion to us that he does, and that it's loads more than the rest of the world gets. Kind of opened my eyes.</p><p></p><p>difficult child 1, on the other hand, is in a different stage. At least his older brother understands that expressing love to those you love is important, and makes as much of an effort as he's capable of. difficult child 1, though, doesn't get it. </p><p></p><p>I think for kids that age that feeling love is much like breathing. You know about it, but it's just there. It isn't until something happens, or until you get older, that you understand that <em>feeling</em> love is not the same as <em>expressing</em> love, and that it's the expression of love in a meaningful way that people (especially parents)are looking for. The danger for us as parents, though, is that we may miss the signs that our difficult child <strong>is</strong> trying to show love, but that the effort doesn't register on our radar.</p><p></p><p>I think both my difficult child's love me. I just don't think they know how to express it in a meaningful way (or at least a way that's meaningful to me).</p><p></p><p>Just my two pennies.</p><p></p><p>Mikey</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mikey, post: 29077, member: 3579"] [b]Do they even know what love is?[/b] At their age, and with their limited (and often skewed) life experience, probably not. But not knowing what love is isn't the same as not loving someone. For most of us, we only feel loved when love is expressed in a meaningful way. I learned this the hard way from my son (difficult child 2). He shows almost no emotion, and, being mostly Italian, that's almost a dagger to my heart. One day, he and I were having it out and I asked him if he liked the cruddy relationship we had. He said "I didn't know our relationship was cruddy". The argument (and the story) went on for a while from there, but the end result was that difficult child 2 told me that it was a real effort for him to even give the little bit of emotion to us that he does, and that it's loads more than the rest of the world gets. Kind of opened my eyes. difficult child 1, on the other hand, is in a different stage. At least his older brother understands that expressing love to those you love is important, and makes as much of an effort as he's capable of. difficult child 1, though, doesn't get it. I think for kids that age that feeling love is much like breathing. You know about it, but it's just there. It isn't until something happens, or until you get older, that you understand that [i]feeling[/i] love is not the same as [i]expressing[/i] love, and that it's the expression of love in a meaningful way that people (especially parents)are looking for. The danger for us as parents, though, is that we may miss the signs that our difficult child [b]is[/b] trying to show love, but that the effort doesn't register on our radar. I think both my difficult child's love me. I just don't think they know how to express it in a meaningful way (or at least a way that's meaningful to me). Just my two pennies. Mikey [/QUOTE]
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