You’re made to teach one subject to your children.
Now that may feel intimidating, especially if school wasn’t something you excelled in. Just the simple reference to being a teacher may give you anxiety because you may not have excelled in chemistry or history. And yet, as a parent, God has entrusted you with the greatest task in educating your children. Not in math, science, or any other school subject, but in love.
Your toddler cannot yet understand spiritual concepts like who God is or what the Eucharist is. But what they can understand is love. They feel and experience it every day through your kind gaze, soft words, and warm embrace. Yes, we will fail sometimes. But no teacher is perfect.
Soon enough, how your child understands love will permeate every aspect of their life, especially their understanding of God. As they grow, they will begin to imitate what they have learned about love through how they treat themselves and others.
This is exactly why St. Pope John Paul II described the family as the “school of love.” As their parent, you are your child’s first encounter with love and ultimately their first encounter with God. By the way you live and love, you are actively teaching your children how to do the same. You’re teaching them what it means to be in a relationship, find safety in times of uncertainty, and maintain key relationships.
It’s a big task, but one you were made for. So here are three simple tips to help you build a “successful” school of love.
1. Provide a Secure Base
Every structure needs a strong foundation. In the school of love, that foundation is love itself. But not just any kind of love. It must be selfless and unidirectional (you give to them and don’t ask the child to take care of your needs).
A selfless and unidirectional love provides children with the safety they need to develop healthy attachments and a stable sense of the world. They learn they do not need to perform, achieve, or behave perfectly in order to be worthy of love. They can let their guard down and be authentically themselves because they know they will be loved anyway.
Over time, this message takes root in the child’s heart: You are lovable as you are, no strings attached, simply because you exist.
This love remains constant regardless of their behavior or what they can give in return. It is not a competition and it is not a transaction. Love is not a scarce resource that will eventually run out. It is abundant.
With this secure base, your child can step into the world with curiosity and confidence. They know their identity is good and valuable. From that security flows the freedom to love themselves and those around them well.
2. Foster Empathy
One of the most important building blocks of a selfless and unidirectional love is empathy.
An empathetic parent holds the capacity for entering into their child’s inner experience to help them understand what’s happening within and what to do with it. True empathy helps a child feel seen, understood, and like they matter. And true empathy creates space for a child to understand what’s happening within them and how to be in a healthy relationship with their emotions.
For example, imagine your child pushes his sibling. Your instinct may be to correct or discipline immediately. That reaction is natural. Your child needs to learn that hurting others is not okay. But the question is, how do we do that in a way that the child truly learns to be kind and virtuous of their own volition?
Here’s the insight: it’s okay for your child to have his or her feelings, but it’s not okay to hurt others with their feelings.
Empathy gives you the space to explore what led to the push. To validate a feeling of frustration or overwhelm because a sibling took a toy or went back on a promise. Those feelings do not excuse the behavior. But they help both you and your child understand where the behavior came from and what to do with the emotion so they know how to respond differently next time.
When you put words to your child’s experience, something powerful happens: you teach them to recognize and respond to their own emotions. They begin to think, I am feeling frustrated right now. Then they can consider how to respond. I should use my words. Maybe I should take a few deep breaths.
Not only does this modeling help your child regulate their emotions and respond more lovingly, but it teaches them to consider the interior lives of others too: Mom seems irritated, but she is not mad at me. She might just be overwhelmed right now. Maybe I can help. Through this practice, your child learns what it feels like to receive empathy, and how to extend that same empathy to others. This becomes powerful fuel for building loving relationships.
3. Prioritize Your Marriage
It may feel counterintuitive to prioritize your marriage before your children. How am I supposed to teach my children well if I am focusing on my spouse? But this question overlooks something important. Children learn constantly through observation.
When love is not treated as a scarce resource but as an abundant one, children do not see the love between their parents as a threat. Instead, it becomes the primary source of familial love that flows down to them.
By observing the love and respect between their mother and father, children learn what love looks like between equals. They move beyond receiving unidirectional love and begin to understand how love functions in reciprocal relationships. This provides them with a template for the relationships they will form with siblings, classmates, friends, and eventually a significant other.
Your children also develop a deeper sense of who they are by witnessing your love for one another. A daughter, for example, may learn how to give love by watching her mother give it and seeing how her father receives it. She also learns what it looks like to receive love by watching how her father gives it to her mother and how her mother receives it.
As children grow, they naturally begin to imitate these patterns in their own relationships. When parents model a healthy and respectful love, children are far more likely to pursue and build relationships marked by that same love.
Where to Go from Here
Eventually children will leave the home. They will carry many things with them. But the most important thing they will take with them is their understanding of love.
None of us will teach it perfectly. We will lose our patience. We will need to apologize. But children do not need perfect parents. They just need parents who keep showing up.
If you feel you’ve failed too much, please know: It’s okay, and it’s never too late to change. Many of us were not raised with healthy models of love ourselves. And as parents, we require a lot of learning and unlearning too.
The good news is: you don’t have to carry that responsibility alone. We are here to help, without any judgment or shame. Schedule a call with our team today, and begin your journey in discovering a healthy school of love