Even at the earliest stages of their lives, our children need our emotional involvement, with a special emphasis on the word "need." There are hundreds of studies showing that our infant children need to be touched and held, rocked and sang to, and made to feel precious. Like their physical needs for food and shelter, their emotional need for our attention is not something that we have a choice about giving them (the data shows that infants will die if they are not physically stimulated through touch). If we want our children to grow up to become highly functional adults who possess the emotional skills to get their needs met, as well as the empathy to focus on the needs of others, fulfilling our children's fundamental need for emotionally attuned attention is the place to start. Because if we are not giving our children enough attention to begin with, we will not have an opportunity to fulfill any of their other emotional needs.

In their book, The Growth of the Mind, Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D. and Beryl Lieff Benderly write:

In a well-known study of infants at four months of age, mothers of healthy babies were asked to forgo their customary smiles, nods, and affectionate coos and show only blank, expressionless stares. The babies followed a predictable pattern in response, first smiling, cooing, and reaching with more and more intensity, as if to say, "Hey, pay attention! I'm talking to you!" When that failed, they paused momentarily, then tried again, more frantically. In a few minutes they had become more irritable and frenetic, their gestures disorganized and increasingly purposeless. At last apathy and disinterest set in and they gave up.

. . . the effect on babies raised by unresponsive caregivers [deprives] them of the chance to establish effective boundaries for their emerging selves. Unlike the babies in the study, whose mothers soon scooped them up in affectionate hugs, infants consistently deprived of appropriate responses become permanently disorganized. They lose interest in communicating, ultimately growing apathetic and even despondent.

What is truly amazing about the emotional development of our children is illustrated by recent discoveries in the field or neuroscience. Researchers have learned that our children's brain growth is directly influenced by the stimuli in the world around them. They respond to a particular stimulus by becoming "stronger" in specific sections of the brain that are influenced by that stimulus. For example, there are separate areas within the brain where our optimistic and pessimistic emotions occur. So if a parent is responsive to a child's needs - such as coming quickly when the child cries to be feed, comforted, or "changed", and spends a lot of time rocking, holding, and interacting with the child, as well - the child's brain will respond by forming new neuronal connections in the areas associated with optimism. The child will begin to feel hopeful toward his or her environment, and tend to internalize a sense of optimism, with actual physical brain growth supporting the process. Conversely, children whose needs are continually neglected will tend to become pessimistic about the world around them as the areas in the brain associated with pessimism are reinforced. The "optimistic parts of their brain" will remain relatively underdeveloped due to a lack of use. So use is the determining factor in brain growth. If our children's brains are to grow in a healthy direction, it is up to us to make sure that they are emotionally and physically stimulated in positive ways on a regular basis.

In his book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., tells of the potential loss of important neuronal connections that can be caused by neglecting our children's emotional developmental needs. He writes:

The human brain is by no means fully formed at birth . . . Children are born with many more neurons than their mature brains retain; through a process called "pruning" the brain actually loses the neuronal connections that are less used, and forms strong connections in those synaptic circuits that have been utilized the most . . . This process is constant and quick; synaptic connections can form in a matter of hours or days. Experience, particularly in childhood, sculpts the brain.

This new evidence of brain growth being affected by outside stimuli has caused quite a stir in the child development community. With celebrity spokesperson Rob Reiner at the vanguard, for example, the I Am Your Child Foundation is dedicated to making this information available to the general public through books, tapes, community outreach programs, television shows and public service announcements. In their free booklet, The First Years Last Forever, they strongly support Dr.Goleman's findings:

It is the expression of our love - touching, rocking, talking, smiling, singing - that affects how your child's brain is "wired" and helps to shape later learning and behavior. Children experience relationships through their senses. Babies experience the way you look into their eyes and they see the expressions on your face; they hear you cooing, singing, talking and reading; they feel you holding or rocking them, and they take in your familiar smells. Touch is especially important: holding and stroking stimulates the brain to release important hormones necessary for growth.

Dr. Goleman finishes his discussion on pruning by encouraging parents to be attentive to their children's emotional needs throughout their formative years:

This makes childhood a crucial window of opportunity for shaping lifelong emotional propensities; habits acquired in childhood become set in the basic synaptic wiring of neural architecture, and are harder to change later in life . . . As we have seen, critical experiences include how dependable and responsive to the child's needs the parents are, the opportunities and guidance a child has in learning to handle her own distress and control impulse, and practice in empathy. By the same token, neglect or abuse, the misattunement of a self-absorbed or indifferent parent, or brutal discipline can leave their imprint on the emotional circuitry . . .

Much psychotherapy is, in a sense, a remedial tutorial for what was skewed or missed completely earlier in life. But why not do what we can to prevent that need, by giving children the nurturing and guidance that cultivates the essential emotional skills in the first place?

Well said, Dr. Goleman! Indeed, why not make extra efforts to ensure that our children are receiving ample emotional nourishment during their formative years and beyond, in order to insure their healthy emotional development into adulthood?

I was recently viewing a group therapy session that involved men who were trying to get in touch with some of their repressed feelings. It was amazing to see the depth of the wounds that these men were still carrying because of their fathers' inability to make their sons feel like they were special, like they really mattered to them. I mean, these were grown men - many of them would even be considered "macho types" - who were crying their hearts out because of the pain of not being unconditionally loved by their fathers. (At this point in the videotape, the session had been going on for over two hours and the participants' ego defenses were now laid aside). One man lamented his lack of attention from his father with these words: "My dad never had time for me. He was always working, traveling around the country on endless business trips." Then another chimed in, "At least your dad had an excuse. Mine was home all the time but still ignored me. He liked to drink beer and watch TV when he got home from work; he said he was too tired to play with me. He always yelled, "Go play with your friends!" when I was really bugging him to do something with me. And on the weekends, when he wasn't tired, he'd go fishing or play golf with his friends." One gentleman whose father did spend a lot of time with his children, however, particularly struck me. He was sobbing that he didn't feel important to his father because his father never spent any individual time with him. It is likely that this man's father has no idea that his son feels this way, what with males in our society constantly being taught to "be strong" and to suppress their sad emotions. I hope that this man's father was sent a copy of the tape (and has the empathy to understand his son's pain).

Consistent, quality interaction deepens our emotional connection with our children, and strengthens their belief in themselves because of our belief in them. Exercising our capacity as teacher and mentor in these focused exchanges also affords us many golden opportunities to guide them in a healthy direction. Preferably, all of this great relationship building happens naturally over the course of the day. We cannot not allow ourselves to become too preoccupied to give our children the emotional attention they need when they need it, at least the majority of times. For over-stressed, working parents who are struggling just to make ends meet and keep up with the household duties during their off hours, this is not always an easy task. In this case, it may become necessary to actually schedule time to focus our attention on our children: wash the dishes; do the laundry; mow the lawn; spend time with our children. In short, we have to do whatever it takes to find time for our children - time that makes them feel emotionally connected to us on a daily basis. Our little ones grow up quickly, and we will never be able to get that time back once it is gone. And it becomes ever more difficult as they grow to try to repair the cracks in the parent/child bond due to missed opportunities to spend time together.

In his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, Stephen R. Covey writes:

To those who would say. 'We don't have time to do these things!' I would say, 'You don't have time not to!' The key is to plan ahead and be strong . . . Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

We as parents are the most influential determiners of our children's self-concept. All children need to know that they are important to their parents in order to maintain their feelings of self-esteem and emotional well-being. It is therefore crucial that we also nurture our children's feelings of self-value during our quality time with them. Who are our children, anyway? Are they their bodies? Are they those little bodies that we bathe and feed and dress every day, who march off to pre-school and on up the education ladder to learn the skills and perform the tasks that we ask of them? Or are our children the collection their of joys and disappointments, wants and needs, and hopes and dreams for warm, happy relationships with their friends and family? I believe that the most important part of who they is their natural sense of self-worth, that tiny spark of hope, within, that tells them they are precious to us and that they will always be loved. It is the part of them, that when properly nurtured, makes possible a life of self-confidence, optimism, and empathy for others.

In his book, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Nathan Branden writes:

Some of the best work that psychologists have done concerning self-esteem is in the area of child-parent relations. An example is Stanley Coopersmith's landmark study, The Antecedents of Self-Esteem. Coopersmith's goal was to identify the parental behaviors most often found where children grew up manifesting healthy self-esteem.

Coopersmith found no significant correlations with such factors as wealth, education, geographic living area, social class, Father's occupation, or always having Mother at home. What he did find to be significant was the quality of the relationship between the child and the important adults in his or her life.

Specifically, he found five conditions associated with high self-esteem in children:

1. The child experiences total acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and the value of his or her person.

2. The child operates in a context of clearly defined and enforced limits that are fair, nonoppressive, and negotiable. The child is not given unrestricted "freedom." Consequently, the child experiences a sense of security.

3. The child experiences respect for his or her dignity as a human being. The parents do not use violence or humiliation or ridicule to control and manipulate. [The parents act with] authority, but not authoritarianism . . . [The parents are] generally available for discussion when and as the child wants it.

4. The parents uphold high standards and high expectations in terms of behavior and performance. Their attitude is not "anything goes" . . . The child is challenged to be the best he or she can be.

5. The parents themselves tend to enjoy a high level of self-esteem. They model (what I call) self-efficacy and self-respect. The child sees living examples of that which he or she needs to learn.

When we help our children feel good about who they are on the inside, one added benefit is that it helps to lessen potential "body image" problems they may encounter later on in adolescence. When you hear stories about little girls in the first and second grade who are already on diets - and whose bodies are well within the normal range - it makes you wonder where this destructive emphasis on the "image" of a human being comes from. It can't only be the media. We as parents are also contributing to this unhealthy focus on the external, often indirectly, by failing to fully nurture our children's internal attention and esteem needs. And thus left with little belief in themselves, our children's focus quite naturally shifts to the external, to their bodies - in the erroneous belief that that is who they really are! With the result being that many more will embark on that fruitless journey to try to make their "outsides" look good in order to make their "insides" feel good. We all know what a losing proposition that is; outer attractiveness can never compensate for inner emptiness.

For an example of a child's need to feel loved and important to both parents - and how, when this need goes unfulfilled in childhood it can be carried into adulthood - I offer you this case in point. I am friends with a forty-three year old woman who is still trying to make her father proud of her. In one respect, this woman was very lucky as a child in that she was blessed with an extremely attentive mother. She was loving and expressive and took great joy in her daughters' lives, playing and doing crafts and going on outings with them on a daily basis. Her father, however, was an adherent of the "old school" of parenting and left the child care duties entirely to his wife. He would come home from work each night, clean up and eat dinner, then disappear into another room to do his own thing. (This probably explains why the woman's mother spent all of her time with her children; her husband was not emotionally available for her either.) Apparently, the man was a real curmudgeon, and rarely had anything positive to say to anyone. So when his daughters would occasionally come to him for advice and approval, they would always meet with negativity from this disagreeable man. As an adult, my friend is a successful publicist in a major city. She has been trying to go national for quite some time with many of her ideas, and though she has a wonderfully warm heart and is highly motivated to help others with her business (not just to make money), part of the reason that she hopes to make it big is to "prove her father wrong," as she puts it. Even at this stage in her life, she still longs for her father's attention, in the form of approval for her career success.

She also blames her sister's many divorces and failed relationships on her search for an approving "father figure." Most psychologists agree that it is a common phenomenon for some adults to seek out mates with similar personality dysfunctions to one or both of their parents in order to "finish their unfinished business." In this case, her sister is "mysteriously" attracted to emotionally distant men and becomes involved with them in order to change them - specifically, by trying to get them to nurture her - thereby healing her "father wound." If this woman wants to increase her chances of finding an emotionally open and supportive mate, and not just continue to bounce from one emotionally distant man to another, it is crucial that she give up this part of her "family system role" (to be discussed in-depth in subsequent chapters). If she can attain this higher degree of emotional wholeness, it will enable her to become attracted to emotionally healthy men because she will no longer have this hidden psychological agenda ingrained in her subconscious mind. As the stories of these two sisters indicate, the best environment for a child to be reared in, whenever possible, is one where both parents are loving and giving. Even devoted love and attention from one parent will not always make up for the lack of it in another.

EMPOWERED PARENTING PRINCIPLE # 1 -
ATTENTION:

All children require regular, focused attention from their primary caregivers. When there are two parents involved in a child's life, it is essential that both parents are "emotionally available" for the child. The timeworn notion that children need nurturing primarily from their mothers is no longer valid; they need ample emotional attention from their fathers, too. But whether there is one caregiver or two, it is important to develop a daily routine of attuned interaction with each of our children because individual "quality time" is what makes them feel special and important inside. Fulfilling our children's attention needs is a vital component of instilling high self-esteem, and helps cement the parent/child bond.

The simple act of listening to our children, in itself, makes them feel worthwhile - worth our time and attention - because we are showing them that their feelings matter to us. Do you find it discouraging when you are speaking with someone about an issue that you find important and he or she barely shows an interest? It feels like a blow to your self-esteem, doesn't it? Imagine how our children must feel when we don't respond to and don't encourage their many emotions and ideas. Because they are so dependent upon us for their feelings of self-value, if this is our normal parenting pattern, their continuing disappointment at not being heard can evolve into a deep sense of "self-worthlessness." How can our children feel valuable if we will not even be bothered with their feelings and observations?

Listening to our children is the key element of focused attention. Listening carefully to what our children say, without judgement, helps us to understand how they are feeling and thinking at any given moment. Parents who do not possess good listening skills are cutting themselves off from the deepest core of who their children are. Parents who are not good listeners will have a difficult time understanding what their children's real strengths and weaknesses are, and will therefore have difficulty helping them discover real solutions to the various obstacles in their lives. The worst part about this scenario is that when children are not well listened to by their parents, it is often the catalyst for children to begin the process of "tuning their parents out," and cutting them off emotionally. Many just give up telling their parents what they are really thinking and feeling, and instead tell them what they want to hear in order to placate them and keep the relationship running smoothly. And as they mature, they will likely turn to their peers for advice and their feelings of belonging. It is a tragedy with often grave consequences, when a child does not have at least one "tuned in" adult to help him or her negotiate the emotional minefield of the maturation process.

In his book, Parent Effectiveness Training, Dr. Thomas Gordon quotes a thirteen-year-old girl who was brought to him for counseling after she ran away from home. She had this to say about her relationship with her mother:

It got to the point where we just couldn't confide at all about even the littlest things . . . like schoolwork. I'd be afraid I'd flunked a test, and I'd tell her I didn't do well. And she'd say, 'Well why not?' and then get mad at me. So I just started lying. I didn't like to lie but I did it, and it got so it didn't really bother me . . . Finally it was just like two different people talking to each other - neither of us would show our real feelings . . . what we really thought.

Sound familiar? A common complaint of parents everywhere is that "my child won't talk to me. Every time I try to speak with her about something, she just clams up!" Well, there's a reason for this. Most likely, these parents internalized many of the negative parenting behaviors with which they grew up, behaviors that actually discourage children from communicating with their parents. And there's a good chance that they, themselves, experienced a distant relationship with one or both of their parents because of their parent's inability to maintain an open, non-judgmental connection with them. From one parent to another, I must say that the most important part of parenting is to keep the lines of communication open with our children. And we must insure, no matter what it takes, that they remain open. Because once they are severed, basically it's "over" - unless we can rise to the complicated challenge of rebuilding them. Or until a point later on in life when parent and child can come to some kind of understanding - to agree to disagree amicably, if you will - and just be friends.

But the ability to listen well, as most of us have experienced, is one of the more underdeveloped skills within the human community. Our listening skills - our ability to "tune into" (and care) what another person thinks and feels - is something that is strongly influenced by how well we were listened to as children. Have you ever been around a family where hardly anyone listens at all? "Where are all the little interjections that make people feel like they are being heard?" we wonder, such as, "I see." or "Oh, really?" and "How did that make you feel?" And why are they missing? These acknowledgement phrases are a key component of an interpersonal conversation, one where people are really connecting with each other, and not just talking at each other.

I grew up in a family where you had to fight to have your thoughts and feelings heard. And the dysfunctional family systems in which my parents grew up were clearly where they failed to learn their empathetic attention and listening skills. I believe that many of the members of my mother's side of the family possess what psychologists call "narcissistic disorder," a psychological condition where there is a keen focus on the "self," and consequently little ability to emotionally support and nurture other people. I know that my mom feels empathy for others, but like everything else in her psyche, it happens in an internal fashion. She has no ability to externally empathize with other people, that is, conversationally. Her primary agenda in her conversations with others is not to listen, not to empathize, not to support, but to continually seek attention by talking. Of course, she learned her self-absorption growing up in her family system, where everyone talks over each other in a "game of one-up-manship," trying to "win" the debate and thus solidify their feelings of self-worth. It's like there is not enough love and praise to go around - because none of the siblings were ever shown much by their parents - so everyone has to vie for every little scrap of attention. No one can just relax, and with a pure heart, share themselves with the others - especially their weaknesses and problems, which are likely to be shamed. Even as a child (probably starting at about age eight) the ways in which these family members related to one another seemed rather odd to me. I would watch other families who were more supportive of each other's feelings, then watch the "listen to what I think" contest in my mom's family, and I knew, even then, that there was something way off kilter.

As a result of my mother's inability to listen to me, I long ago gave up trying to tell her what was happening in my life because I am never allowed to share my feelings and experiences in any kind of developed way. More importantly, she never emotionally supports me, and I mean never. As I begin to express something to her, there is an almost immediate interruption with something like, "Oh, the very same thing happened to me last week!" And the monologue marathon is off and running, with her still trying diligently to fill the "attention hole" that was formed in her psyche during her emotionally deprived childhood. The more she gets wound up and on a roll, the more I drift off to another place - and throw in an occasional "Really?" or "Oh, yeah," so as not to be rude. I know she cares about me. But I realized a long time ago that I was not put on this Earth to meet my mother's insatiable need for attention. In fact, it was her job as nurturer to meet my attention needs, a task she could not fulfill because of her inability to break free from (or even recognize) her narcissistic disorder. Because I know how disheartening it is to be ignored by one's primary caregiver for a lifetime, I make extra efforts to focus on my daughter's attention needs, and try to listen to everything she tells me. It's been a struggle, but I am determined to overcome this multi-general dysfunction within my family system in my lifetime.

One of the worst effects in a child who is not getting enough attention from his primary caregivers is the onset of attention-getting behavior. The need for parental attention is a primary need in children, and a child whose attention needs are being neglected will not "go quietly into the night," accepting the fact that his parents are self-involved and therefore will not give him their attention. Oh, no no no! Our children need our attention and indeed they will fight for it, if we do not give it to them willingly. It's easy to see this characteristic in young children. If we are temporarily engrossed in something, they will call our name ten times or more (as many as it takes) to "See how high I can jump, Dad," and so on. Our young children are vehement in gaining our attention, and so they should be. Because their psyche's need it in order to develop properly. It is a healthy drive in them. But in families where children are not getting their attention needs met, as they get older, many children will give up their persistence in gaining their parent's positive attention (because they see that it is a waste of time), and begin "acting-out" to gain negative attention instead. To an attention-starved child, negative attention is far better than being ignored. At least it is some acknowledgement for his existence. And as this pattern of "bad behavior" unfolds, a relationship of "acting-out then being punished for it" develops between parent and child, with misery to be shared by all. And like a building that begins to fall into disrepair due to inattention, the parent/child bond also falls into disrepair for lack of positive attention. As parents, it is in our self-interest to fulfill our children's attention needs, because there is a good chance they will make our lives a living hell if we do not. More importantly, if we want our children to develop into emotionally healthy adults, we have no choice but to abundantly fulfill their attention needs.

When I was young, I have vague recollections of my brothers and I planning to tease my mom in order to make her angry (which was a pretty simple task), and then carrying out these mischievous intentions. It was our little game of "lets watch mom go ballistic!" To the casual observer, it might seem like we were being "bad kids." But what was happening was that we were trying desperately, and in vain, to get the maternal attention we needed from an emotionally self-involved woman with no ability to "give of herself" to her children. What we really needed was more (some) positive attention; what we received instead was punishment. It amazes me that we as a society are still largely ignorant of this point, that is, a child's powerful need for parental attention. Even in those instances where a teenager half-heartedly attempts suicide, we say that, "He's just trying to get attention" - like the suicide attempt was no big a deal, and that needing attention is a bad thing for which he should feel ashamed. If our child is "gesturing" suicide (as this powerful call for help is labeled and often "minimized"), I'd say it's a good bet that he desperately needs more of our positive attention. A lot more! The reality is that somehow we are going to have to try to make up for all the attention that he missed out on that drove him to his current state of despair. But it is the only way to really help him. And it must be done immediately.

Our children will not know if we are listening to them unless we react with verbal and visual cues that demonstrate we are paying attention. One technique for assuring our children of our interest is called "Mirroring." Just as it sounds, emotional mirroring is a reflecting back of our children's words by repeating what they have said to us. Such as, a simple - "Oh, you went the park today. That's great!" - lets them know they are being heard. And then, "Tell me about it." And stopping what we are doing and listening intently to them, sharing in the delights of their experience. Mirroring our children's thoughts and feelings confirms that we care deeply about their lives. It also bolsters their self-esteem and teaches them, by example, the all-important listening skills they will need to learn in order to become good friends, spouses, and parents.

In addition to mirroring, a particularly beneficial practice for building self-esteem in young children is to give them concrete attention messages, such as: "I see how well you are doing at . . . I hear that you may be having some trouble with . . ." or "I feel so sad for you about . . ." Using phrases that begin with - I see (you); I hear (that you); or I feel (how much you) - assures our children that we are, indeed, paying attention to them, and that we are concerned with their thoughts and feelings. Giving our children frequent doses of our undivided attention will instill feelings of self-value in them because we are demonstrating how valuable they are to us on a regular basis.

Focusing our attention on our children's feelings is also the means by which we assess how they are developing emotionally. We must ask ourselves: Are our children learning to believe in themselves and trust their ability to accomplish the goals that they and others set for them? Can they get through those tasks without digressing into anger and frustration? Are they learning how to cooperate with others, how to share and take turns? Are they learning the fundamental emotional lesson that people's feelings are the most important thing there is - even more important than getting their turn first or winning the game? And most significantly, are they learning to enjoy the enriching feelings of camaraderie that sharing and cooperation brings to emotionally healthy people? In short, are our children becoming the kinds of warm and generous people that we want them to be?

Some time ago, I was driving with my wife and brother-in-law, and we were talking about the different ways in which we give emotionally attuned attention to our children. As the discussion progressed into the area of play, I blurted out my forlorn admission, "I stink at Barbie®." Well, my wife and brother-in-law thought that this was about the funniest thing they had ever heard. I quickly got caught up in their laughter, and it was quite some time before we could compose ourselves enough for me to explain to them exactly what I meant. You see, my wife is a natural at playing with our daughter; she can play Barbie® and other role-playing games endlessly with Camille, sharing laughter and the little inside jokes they have discovered together. For me, because I grew up with parents who had little capacity for play, I have had to work at learning to play with my daughter in certain ways. We do great on the computer together, with her on my lap, particularly with the educational games we like to share. Camille has shown quite a proclivity for learning, and we can spend a good part of the evening at the keyboard. And I am good in many other areas of play with her, such as board games, playing catch, taking her to the park, and so on. But after about ten or fifteen minutes of playing dolls, I start to get a little "antsy" and ask Camille if she wants to do something else. Since playing Barbie® is her favorite thing to do, however, we usually end up playing for quite a long time.