Fill a child with love and kindness

Fill a child with enough love to last a lifetime and that child will grow up to do the same.

Love seems to be the answer to almost any question. And there is no question that children need love -- lots of it. Some need more than others, yet all of them do better when they are filled with love.

We all know that abused children tend to grow up and continue that abuse with their own children. Better stated might be that abusive adults were usually abused children. Why not the opposite - fill a child with love?

I remember a simple example of this. Long ago I was teaching tennis on private courts in the Malibu Colony, a very exclusive, private area north of Santa Monica. I was working with a recently divorced woman who had just moved into the Colony with her brood of children. It was a disheveled life for the kids as well as for her. Money didn't solve it.

As we were hitting balls, children kept coming on the court with one problem or another. The mother was distracted in many ways. Then there was one small fellow about four years-old riding a tricycle around on my side of the court. He was sad and lost. I just went over to him and just put my hand on his back. He settled and accepted my kindness. His mother carried on with her disruptive teens. Later she asked me what I had done for her son. I said that I had just loved him.

This experience made an impression on me as a young woman and later when I had my own son I loved him continuously. He is now a young man with a wonderful young woman in his life. She reports to me now and then how kind and loving he is. This makes me smile.

Children, of course, need more than just love. But when love is the underpinnings of their life it will certainly be extended throughout their life and beyond.

"Life is wonderful."

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