(2 min read) One of the families I used to work for had a framed photo of one of their children prominently displayed in the window above their kitchen sink. Not just any photo, but a photo of their child sleeping as a young toddler. Snuggly in a sleep sack, curled onto their belly, their tiny mouth relaxed… soooo innocent and peaceful. I always loved that photo.
As time passed I realized that this wasn’t just a sweet photo that made me happy. It had magic powers!
Each time I looked at it (which was many, many times per day) I was reminded of how young and small this child used to be. I was also reminded of how young and small they still were regardless of how well they were able to negotiate or how grown up they seemed in comparison.
I think that displaying such a photo allows us to tap into those feelings of unconditional positive regard that are absolutely essential for all the times that children will test us. Unconditional positive regard is a concept popularized by humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1950s. It can be defined as:
an attitude of caring, acceptance, and prizing that others express toward an individual irrespective of his or her behavior (emphasis added)... Unconditional positive regard is considered conducive to the individual’s self-awareness, self-worth, and personality growth; it is, according to Carl Rogers, a universal human need essential to healthy development.
Unconditional positive regard is a crucial stance for the all-out tantrums and the times they’ll holler “I hate you.” For the times they shove their sibling (who happens to be standing on the stairs) or draw on the walls or throw a dinosaur at your head. For the times they’ll push us to our absolute limit of patience. For the times we have to really dig deep because it’s our job as the adults to stay calm and regulated and remember that children aren’t “giving us a hard time, they’re having a hard time.”
“Children need to be loved as they are, and for who they are. When that happens, they can accept themselves as fundamentally good people, even when they screw up or fall short… Unconditional love, in short, is what children require in order to flourish.”
And whatever we need to do in order to remember this sweetness, this innocence, this developmental immaturity will only serve us in being the kind of parents and caregivers we want to be–patient, empathic, generous, curious, benevolent, understanding, and optimistic.
So get thee to the drugstore and print out a photo of your kiddo in a sweet sleepy moment and put it up somewhere in your home where you can see it every day. Let it be a reminder of your child as a perfectly imperfect, still-developing, still-learning human who is, at their core, good and always worthy of love. And maybe, while you’re at it, print out a photo of yourself as a young child to remind yourself that you too are all of those same things.