John Gray - Children Are from Heaven - Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

Caring is a willingness to be there for your children, an interest in their well being as well as in who they are, a desire for their happiness and empathy for their pain. Caring is the in-your-face kind of love.

Caring motivates parents to be involved,

interested, and affected by children’s

experiences of life.

Trust is a recognition that everything is okay; it is an awareness and belief in your children’s ability to succeed and learn from their mistakes; it is an open willingness to let things unfold assuming that everything will be okay. Trust assumes that your child is always doing his or her best even when it doesn’t look that way. It gives freedom and space for children to do for themselves.

Trust motivates a parent to give freedom and

space for children to do for themselves.

Certainly, every child needs caring and trust, but in different doses. Too much of a good thing is too much. Up until the age of nine, all children need more caring and a little less trust. After the age of nine, children naturally begin to pull away and become more independent. You can tell a child needs to pull away when he or she starts feeling embarrassed by your behaviors.

Around the age of nine, children begin to develop a sense of self as separate from the parent. This is the time of self-consciousness. From this time on up to age eighteen, children have a greater need for trust, although caring is still important.

Regardless of age, boys need trust more while girls need caring. A boy tends to feel good about himself when he does something on his own. When he can take credit, he feels more confident and proud. For example, he may willfully resist his mother’s help in tying his shoes, so that he can get credit and assume responsibility for himself. On the other hand, a girl may feel more loved if you offer to help. Offering to help is a gesture of caring, while letting a boy do it himself is a gesture of trust.

Regardless of age, boys tend to need trust

more while girls need caring.

When a mother is too caring for a boy’s particular need, he easily interprets her behavior as an indication that “she doesn’t trust me to do it myself.” When a father is too trusting of a girl’s ability to handle things, she can feel that he is not caring enough. When a girl gets too much space, she may feel rejected, hurt, or abandoned. A boy, however, may thrive feeling that his parents recognize his competence and trust in his ability to take care of himself or to do the right things.

Mothers often weaken their sons by worrying too much or smothering them with concern, while fathers often neglect their daughters’ need for caring and attention by giving lots of space, trusting girls to handle things on their own. Parents need to understand that boys form a positive sense of self based on the trust they get, while girls develop a positive sense of self based on the interest and caring attention they get in the relationship.

The biggest challenge in life for women is to trust again after they have been hurt, while for men it is to remain motivated or to continue caring. In response to difficulties in a relationship, women most often complain, “I don’t get what I need” (that is, “I can’t trust him to give me what I need”), while men complain that “nothing I do makes her happy so why bother” (that is, “I just don’t care anymore”). Women most often complain, “He doesn’t care any more,” and men complain, “She is too hard to please, so I stopped caring.”

These different tendencies begin in childhood. Girls and boys come into this world equally trusting and caring. As they experience neglect or the pain of unmet needs and wants, boys often react by caring less, while girls react by trusting less. The challenge for parents is to give a girl extra doses of caring, understanding, and respect so they may continue trusting. On the other hand, the challenge for parents is to give a boy extra doses of trust, acceptance, and appreciation to keep him motivated.

The challenge for parents is to give a girl

extra doses of caring, understanding, and

respect so she may continue trusting.

A girl has a greater need to feel that she can trust her parents to be there and understand her feelings, wishes, and needs.

This is her need to be vulnerable and dependent on others. She needs to feel safe in depending on her parents for support. This need is often met by sharing feelings and asking for help.

When she is in pain, she needs to know that her parents will be there for her with lots of caring. When she gets the caring she requires, then she can feel trust and remain open. A trusting girl is a happy and fulfilled girl. Safety is essential for a girl to develop her gifts and talents. Otherwise, she feels unworthy, resistant to support, and unlovable.

Sometimes if she feels powerless to get what she needs, a girl may suppress her feminine vulnerabilities and become more like a boy, needing more space, trust, acceptance, and appreciation. For this girl, it is too painful to need the caring and not get it, so she denies her female side and her male side emerges with its needs.

When a girl is neglected, it is often too

painful to continue needing and in reaction

she becomes more masculine.

This does not mean that a girl with more masculine traits is always wounded on her female side. It could also be that she has an active temperament, which may make her appear more masculine. Though they behave more like boys, tomboys are still girls. They still need extra caring, understanding, and respect.

Certainly, a boy needs caring, understanding, and respect to feel safe and trusting, but more important for him is motivation. He needs to be motivated, otherwise he stops caring.

When a boy stops caring, he becomes bored, unmanageable, and may have learning problems. When he is not motivated, he will lose his focus and either become depressed or hyperactive. A boy has a greater need to be motivated.

The challenge for parents regarding a boy is

to give extra doses of trust, acceptance, and

appreciation to keep him motivated.

For a boy to care, he needs to be motivated by success and rewards. He needs to receive the clear message that he can and does make his parents happy. When he is successful in making his parents happy, he continues to be motivated, otherwise he becomes weak and uncaring. Positive rewards for right behaviors are clear signals to him that he has succeeded as well.

While offering help to a girl may make her feel special and cared for, a boy may take it as an insult. Offering to help him may imply that you don’t trust him to do what is required. Sometimes the most caring thing you can do for a boy is to give him lots of space to do something on his own.

Even if that means he will fail, trust that he will learn his lesson. And please remember, if he does fail, don’t tell him, “I told you so.”

Offering help to girl may make her feel cared

for, but a boy may take it as an insult.

Of course, a girl needs to feel trusted, accepted, and appreciated as well, but, for a little boy to be motivated, he often needs much bigger doses of these. A boy cares more when he is viewed as competent and acceptable just the way he is. Megadoses of trust make a boy feel competent. The “super fuel” to be motivated is appreciation. When a boy feels acknowledged for what he does, he is motivated to do more. There is no greater motivator than success itself.

Understanding that boys have different needs helps parents (especially mothers) make the correct adjustments in giving them what they need. Likewise, by understanding a girl’s special needs, parents (especially fathers) make the correct adjustments in giving their daughter what she needs. It is not enough just to love our children and give them what we would want or need most, we must adjust our gifts of loving support to meet their particular needs. Remembering that boys (like men) are from Mars, and girls (like women) are from Venus makes parenting a whole lot easier.