CHAPTER 1 Unconditional Positive Regard
“I KNOOOOOOW,” my daughter groans in the kind of exasperated sigh only an eight-year-old can muster (the groans and sighs I get from my sixteen- and five-year-olds are distinctly different). “There’s nothing I can do to make you stop loving me, I KNOW … But what if I MURDER SOMEONE?”
“Well, I’ll definitely need to know WHY you murdered them—maybe it was necessary! But I’ll still love you.” I answered.
“What if I murder SANTA?!”
“Did he come down the chimney and you thought he was a robber? Or was it just like … because you could? Regardless, I’ll still love you. I just need to plan whether I’m visiting you in prison or learning about stand-your-ground law.”
It’s at this point that I’ve completely lost the plot with this kid, and she’s gotten exactly what she wanted—confirmation that I’ll never stop loving her, and attention in the form of an absolutely ludicrous conversation.
This particular example of unconditional positive regard is emblematic of how conversations with my kids regarding my feelings for them typically go. First, I remind them at some perfectly mundane time that there’s nothing they can do to get me to stop loving them. Then they roll their eyes at having to hear this exact phrase for the 50/100/1,000th time and follow up their giant sigh with some highly unlikely scenario to test the theory. We banter back and forth a bit about exactly how this ridiculous turn of events might have come to pass, but ultimately, they land right back where they started—with a mother who will never, not ever, stop loving them. Regardless of what they do, regardless of who they love, regardless of the bad choices they might make or questions they might feel uncomfortable asking me—there is nothing in the whole wide world that will make me stop loving them.
The concept of unconditional positive regard was made popular by humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1950s. Though the idea is generally used in psychology to describe the way a clinician should treat their client—providing unconditional support by recognizing their innate ability to grow and change—it’s easy to apply to caregivers and their children. Think of it this way: You, as their primary, most loving grown-up, can see both the tiny child before you and the awesomely cool grown-up they’re going to be … at the same time. That feeling—knowing your child is an unbelievably amazing future grown-up—is the beginning of unconditional positive regard.
Unconditional positive regard is not the same as unconditional love, which is the bare minimum. It’s the idea that in addition to loving your child, you also respect your child and their personhood. You recognize that they are a whole person, separate from you, who deserves your care, attention, and esteem. It does not mean that you have no boundaries for your child; it does not mean that you cannot help your child learn morality; it is not unconditional “yes” or “they’ll grow out of it” without guidance. It means specifically that you love your child enough to provide them with the safest and healthiest way to grow up that you can.
I believe that the unconditional positive regard of a primary caregiver is the first, most important foundational understanding to foster in children. This is rooted in both my experience as a parent, and also as a counselor. As a trained mental health practitioner, I’ve worked with children from early childhood all the way into early adulthood, and one of the most common themes I’ve recognized is that many children felt the most comfortable talking about hard things and asking me difficult questions when they feel sure I wouldn’t be mad at them for talking or asking. I came to the conclusion that children acted this way in part because they viewed question asking the same way they viewed any other behavior—as something that would result in a response somewhere on the spectrum between praise and punishment—and asking a “bad” question the same way they viewed making a mistake. And for many of these kids, mistakes meant shame and punishment. To me, the connection was clear: The best way for me to help my children feel comfortable and confident asking me the hard questions was to show them that asking would never be a mistake—and that mistakes don’t always mean punishment. Research shows that recognition for positive behavior not only helps reinforce positive behavior, it also aids in identity development, moral reasoning, and social thinking. So our job, then, as parents or caregivers, is to encourage the behavior we most want to see: open communication, trust, and, when the going gets tough, what my kids and I call “going toward love.” This encouragement starts by figuring out how to prove to our kids that we are worthy. We start by expressing our unconditional love and showing them our unconditional positive regard.
You might be thinking expressing unconditional love is achieved with a sentiment like “I love you to the moon and back” or “I love you more than the universe” or any of the myriad of expressions of great love. But we know that children, especially young children, tend to be much more literal than those phrases account for. While we, as adults, have the abstract thinking necessary to understand that these expressions are meant to be interpreted as boundless love, kids don’t understand them that way until they, too, have developed the ability for abstract thought (usually as they enter adolescence). That’s why the phrase we use in our house—“there’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you”—is said the way it is. It is an explicit, unarguable, definable, and finite expression of the truth: that there is no question, thought, or action that my kids can have or do that will change my feelings for them.
As I mentioned, the way I choose to present information to children is primarily based on their cognitive development. Scientists have been interested in cognitive development—the way people learn to think—for a long time, and several theories have been proposed to explain how kids’ brains grow and change over time. One of these, Jean Piaget’s widely known theory of cognitive development, is the basis for many approaches and interventions for children, including the suggestions in this book. This theory states that cognitive development occurs over the course of the entire life span, and it can be broken into distinct stages.
The first stage of cognitive development, from birth to roughly age two, is called the sensorimotor stage. This is the time in a child’s life when they are learning the most by interacting physically with the world around them. It’s the stage of putting everything in their mouths and grabbing fistfuls of anything nearby—including your hair and their own bodies.
The next stage is the preoperational stage of development, from right about when they turn three until roughly age seven. Kids in this stage have usually learned to communicate and have the ability to express themselves, but they have a lot of difficulty understanding other people’s points of view. They struggle to recognize that people may have different feelings about a situation than they do and have to have questions answered in a way that correlates to something they already know. As they grow through this period, kids learn to understand basic concepts like simple cause and effect, and love to know “why.” They may even endeavor to answer their own questions with magical thinking instead of seeking out actual answers.
As kids gain the ability to see other perspectives and engage with ideas using logic, they enter what is called the concrete operational stage. Kids in this stage still love to know the answers to questions, but they can begin to look at evidence and come to conclusions based on the information in front of them. Kids are typically in the concrete operational stage from the age of seven until the age of eleven. While kids this age begin to demonstrate a more adult-like engagement with information, they still struggle to consider abstract or hypothetical ideas and scenarios. They do best when information can be related to a concrete example or demonstration that is familiar to them.
The stage of development that carries children into adult life is called the formal operational stage. Children (and adults) who have developed into this stage are able to mentally manipulate information presented to them and apply several modes of thinking to solve problems and find answers to their questions. At roughly age twelve, kids start engaging with hypothetical thought. They are able to consider the influence of several variables at a time, multiple outcomes, and how their thoughts and actions may influence those outcomes. Kids this age also begin to demonstrate metacognition, or “thinking about thinking”—they can gain introspection and see how their thoughts influence their own feelings, choices, and behaviors.
“There’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you” became my family’s go-to phrase because it is easily understood starting from the moment they recognize that I have my own thoughts and feelings (right around age four). Now, I’ll grant you—the phrase is a bit cumbersome. It can be a mouthful even at the best of times, so it’s not the only expression of great love we use in our house. “I love you infinity and beyond” is tossed around with ease—so much so that I have it tattooed on my arm in my late husband’s handwriting. My eldest child understands that infinity is limitless, and my youngest children will eventually understand the abstract idea of a number that never ends—so we will keep using the expression. We also indulge in finding things we love each other “more than”: “I love you more than Indian food,” “I love you more than dance,” “I love you more than video games,” “I love you more than this house and money and our car and everything I own.” Depending on the seriousness of the mood, we can range from loving each other more than something barely tolerated—“I love you more than TOENAIL CHIP COOKIES”—to something sacred: “I love you more than my Grandpa Bear.” This phrase is almost miraculous in its utility—I can use it to defuse a tense situation, dry tears, bring giggles, and infuse even a mundane moment with love.
I also love to ambush my children with “I love you.” The game is easy enough in the beginning—the aim is to truly surprise them with an unexpected “I love you.” When the kids are little, it’s cake to win, because they never see it coming:
“Guess what?”
“What?!”
“I LOVE YOU!”
It quickly—around age four or five—starts to earn you a groan and an “I know.” But shortly thereafter the kids start trying to beat you at your own game. “Guess what?” “You love me.” Then you get to pick your reaction:
“I mean, DUH, but also—you have a booger on your nose.”
Or: “Oh, gross. Thanks.”
OR you can choose to reply:
“HOW DID YOU KNOW?!”
This response is my favorite, because it allows me to check in on the ways my child feels the most loved. Often they’ll report that they know I love them because I tell them all the time. But sometimes they’ll say “because you cuddle me” or “because you come to my recitals” or “because you are kind to my friends.” I can take mental stock of the ways my child feels the most seen and supported, and make sure I’m continuing the behaviors that help them feel loved.
Even if we’re cycling through all these expressions of great love on a daily basis, it bears repeating that they will not replace “There’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you.” And that’s because the goal of the phrase is simple: to cultivate a sense of both safety and security in my children. I want them to know that while I may express negative emotions (“I’m sorry, you spilled what on my bed?”) or dole out natural consequences for choices that were ill-made (“You snuck extra computer time and made all of us late for the day because you couldn’t get out of bed, so the router is on lockdown starting at nine p.m. to help you develop a better rhythm”), the outcomes of their mistakes will never be “You are nothing to me. I don’t have a child with your name.”
That being said, the sense of safety and security that children feel is influenced far more by actions than promises. We want them to know that not only do we love them unconditionally, we also respect them as individuals. Our children are learning How to People, and they are going to make a lot of mistakes and missteps in the process. They are going to do things that, to us, are so obviously a bad idea, but to them … who knows what will happen?! And as my daughter Turkey will tell you, “Mistakes are how we learn!” How we as caregivers react when they make bad decisions, ask unexpected questions, and push boundaries will impact how safe they feel to come to us for guidance in the future.
So how do we live up to our promise that our love and positive regard for them is unconditional when our children make bad decisions? The model I use for my own children is very much based in what I experienced in my own childhood and young adulthood. Though there are a myriad of examples of this to choose from my earliest (and first) core memory happens to be a great example of both natural consequences and unconditional positive regard.
If you can, imagine a shopping mall in the early ’90s. Wait, make that a rural Midwest shopping mall in the early ’90s. Way less Day-Glo, way more burgundy and teal. There were only two anchor stores, and the biggest draws were the movie theater and the then thriving craft store. The craft store was really the only reason my mom ever went to the mall—she frequently made clothes for us, as well as quilts and wall hangings that she saw on public access television craft shows. My mom didn’t bother with the anchor stores—they were outside the budget and didn’t carry clothes that fit her incredibly tall children. No, the mall was really only for craft supplies and the occasional trip to the movie theater.
For my older siblings, however, the mall was a great place to find new music, shoes for various sports, and food. So even though my mother didn’t need to venture any farther into the mall than the craft store just inside the main entrance, on one fated trip, after buying my sister some new basketball sneakers, we found ourselves in the heart of the mall. I was roughly four years old, and I had (in my memory) held it together pretty well, given that I had just been forced to sit through my mother’s rigorous and extensive shoe selection process. I was granted a walk through a kids’ accessory store that for the purposes of this book shall remain nameless (okay, fine, it was Claire’s). Everything was fluffy pink, lavender, and baby blue. Earrings shaped like food adorned just about every surface, and there was an entire wall of hair accessories that only the chicest of chic Tiger Beat cover models could have pulled off.
I had never been allowed into this store before, or at least I don’t remember ever being brought in there until this fateful day. And I may not look it now, but I was peak Fancy Kid. I lived for my elbow-length satin gloves and my clip-on earrings. With eyes like dinner plates, I was perusing the irresistible wares with strict instructions to TOUCH. NOTHING. I was a Fancy Kid, but I was also a clumsy one, and it was no stretch of the imagination to envision me tipping over a display or accidentally ripping an entire shelf off the wall.
It’s worth mentioning here that one of the ideas that has changed between the way I was parented and the way I parent my children is that “don’t” statements have been swapped out for alternatives that include what the child should do. The way I phrase it for my own kids, and the rule I would’ve provided four-year-old me is: “There’s lots of breakables in this store, so your hands need to be in your pockets or behind your back.” The first few trips with this approach sound like a skipping CD, but once the kids know what’s expected of them, they do it with a single reminder.
So, there I was in Claire’s, dutifully following the rules, until I saw … it. The most beautiful headband. It was blue, with two little furry puffballs on the end of springs that bobbled around when you put the headband on. I was instantly enamored, and all my impulse control went out the window. In seconds I had the headband in my hands and was preparing to put it on my head. Naturally, at age four, I knew that to put it on my head I needed to make the bottom wide enough to go over my head. I grasped either end of the sparkly blue arch and pulled them apart. With as much force as was required to break a piece of dry spaghetti, the headband snapped in my hands.
I’ve thought a lot about what makes this a core memory for me—why, when so much of my childhood is foggy in my recollection, does this moment stick out so much? And I think I’ve figured out why—this moment was the first time I consciously remember considering lying to my mom. She had her back to me—she hadn’t seen me touch the headband, and I could’ve easily put it down in a box that was to my right. But I didn’t. I felt safe enough to walk up to my mom and show her that I had broken the headband. And her reaction was exactly what I had expected: I got a brief scolding for choosing to touch the headband after being instructed not to, and I was informed that I would be using some of my “trip money” to pay for it, meaning that I could no longer buy anything from the store.
And I. Completely. Understood.
I did not cry. I did not protest. I was very embarrassed as I handed the broken merchandise to the cashier and apologized—I knew I had made a mistake. The cashier reassured me that it was all right, and even told my mom that I didn’t have to pay for it. But—and this next part is controversial for some, but I stand by it—my mom said no. “I appreciate the offer, but she needs to pay for at least part of it—she was told not to touch things because she’s not always the most careful.” She knew that it was a frustrating, embarrassing, and maybe even a little bit sad lesson for me, but I had a history. I wasn’t just clumsy—I was her “f*ck around and find out” kid. I thought of myself as the exception—things wouldn’t go wrong for me! And often they didn’t … but I refused to admit that they even could. So this instance of things going sideways needed to be something I remembered. I didn’t need to be ashamed of it, but I did need to internalize it. That’s why she responded the way she did—a reminder of my mistake, and a natural consequence for the choice. That was it. That was the end. I wasn’t constantly reminded of it, or spanked, or told I could never go back to Claire’s, or screamed at when we got out of earshot of the cashier, or—the worst possible outcome—permanently labeled as a thief or a “naughty kid.” I had made a poor choice, but it didn’t define me. And I’ve never forgotten that.
This experience was just the first in a long line of experiences that drove home for me how vital it is that we accurately and fairly respond to our children’s mistakes. These reactions will vary by age (and by incident), but they boil down to this: our boundaries and our children’s behavior. Think of boundaries like a fence in your brain that marks what you will tolerate and what you won’t tolerate. They are our values that influence how we set our rules and expectations, and how we communicate those rules and expectations. When we discuss boundaries, we often think of phrases like “You can’t talk to me like that” or “You can’t touch this.” However, neither of those statements are boundaries because they are attempting to explicitly control the behavior of someone else. And though we can somewhat control our children’s behavior while they’re in the earliest parts of their lives, that influence fades quickly and does not have the positive outcomes we hope for.
Instead, boundaries are expressions of what you will accept from another person. “I will not listen to you speak to me like that” or “I will not allow you to touch this.” These are expressions of boundaries because they are enforceable by you—you can choose to stop listening regardless of whether the other person is still talking, and you can choose to remove the object that someone is trying to touch. Framing rules and expectations in this way (even if you only do so in your head) helps clarify the real reason why you have set a rule, and may actually help you eliminate unnecessary rules and those that have become a point of unneeded conflict. Additionally, knowing why we’ve set these boundaries and being able to communicate that “why” will help our children decide whether they will choose to respect the boundary or continue to test and resist it.
