Who Cares about you

We are at camp again this week, our second and final time this year, directing a week for campers between grades six and nine.

During the first few days here, it has become obvious to me how differently some of the campers have experienced love in their lives. They all have people who love them, and they would say so if they were asked, but some of them have real confidence in this love and others do not.  Some have been loved in healthy ways and others have not.  Some have many people who love them and some of them do not.

The difference that this has made in their lives can hardly be overstated. Those kids who have many, strong, healthy, loving relationships are far more confident, far less swayed by their peers, far less likely to display attention-seeking behaviors. They’re nothing like perfect, of course, because all kids have their struggles and their failings, but they are quite noticeably better equipped to handle themselves, their peers, their leaders, and their surroundings.

It has reaffirmed for me the importance of building those kinds of relationships with my own children, especially with my adopted kids who sometimes struggle really to believe that I love them, not just for what they can do, but just for who they are, just for being my kids.  It has reaffirmed that I need to do everything, from play to discipline, in ways that they understand as loving. I have seen once again the difference that it can make.