19 Ways to Make a Child Feel more Loved – When you are Insanely Busy
“I love you, mommy! You’re very good” my daughter used to say this to me a lot of times. She knows how to express emotions and how to make me feel more loved but do I’m able to do this too?
In this article:
- What happens when a child doesn’t feel loved and valued?
- 19 simple and practical ways to make your child feel loved, without hurting your routine.
- Ask yourself these simple questions.
- Action plan for next week
This post may contain affiliate links. For my full disclosure policy click here.
I’m a work-from-home mother. I have so many commitments, my work, home, cooking, cleaning, and working exercising too.
Sometimes, I feel like I ignore her a lot.
I used to think that I need to make more time to make her feel more loved and appreciated.
Why?
I thought that I need to play with her for longer, I need to take her outside and cook her delicious meals.
I thought that I should cuddle her for a long time so she could feel loved. This is what we usually read everywhere.
But my 3-years-old daughter proved me wrong.
She proved it by making me feel more loved when she is busy. A quick hug while playing outside melted my heart.
She is busy watching her favorite show and all of a sudden she looks at me for a second throws me a flying kiss and gets back to her show.
How does she know that making me feel loved is so important?
How did this little human being come up with this cute idea?
She made me think that if she can make me feel more loved and valued in such simple ways, why I’m always looking to get free from other chores to show my attention and love towards her.
I started looking for ways to make her feel more loved and valued. I also decided to show my attention and care towards her in such simple and short ways.
I’m not saying that I stopped looking for more common longer ways, I still want to get free from other tasks earlier so I can spend more time with my lovely daughter.
Wait a minute!
Before hopping over to those lovely ideas, let me mention the importance of making a child feel more loved?
What happens when a child doesn’t feel loved and valued?
If a child doesn’t feel that she is loved and has some value, she misses the normal emotional bond with the caregiver.
Children do not get the idea behind providing for their basic needs, they don’t know why they are asked to eat healthily and why mommy or daddy is trying to discipline them. They don’t understand how hard you are working to provide them with the things they have.
If a parent is constantly taking care of a child by feeding them the right food and setting up a proper routine, the child is more likely to hate the parent for all of these.
They need small acts of kindness and love. They need hugs, kisses, cuddles, gifts, smiles, attention, family time, and things like that.
Whoever the caretaker is! if he/she is not taking enough care of making a child feel loved. The most important part of parenting is being missed.
The absence of strong parent-child bonding may lead to a condition called “attachment disorder”, which is actually a series of emotional and behavioral problems in children of young age.
According to the VeryWellMind; possible symptoms of attachment disorder are:
- Bullying or hurting others
- Intense bursts of anger
- Failure to smile
- Lack of fear of strangers
- Lack of eye contact
- Self-destructive behaviors
- Not joining other children in playing
- Extreme clinginess
- Withdrawn or listless moods
Children with attachment disorder may have other psychiatric disorders like ADHD, PTSD, conduct disorder, tic disorder, phobia of anything, and so many more alike situations that may block their way forward.
So you see, Just taking care of a few things and following simple practices may help your child stay safe from so many problems earlier or later in their life.
So you see, Just taking care of a few things and following simple practices may help your child stay safe from so many problems earlier & later in their life.
Easy ways to help your child feel more special, loved, and valued and without hurting your routine
Here “without hurting your routine” means without disturbing you while you complete all of your daily tasks and chores, without hurting your budget, and without consuming so much energy.
Like, in common ways of bonding with the baby you are asked to spend more time together, go outside, and have fun with kids. You are advised to bring more gifts and arrange family nights.
True! these things work but you have to wait to follow these kinds of guidelines until you have enough money and time to do so.
Let’s have a detailed look at how I make my daughter feel more connected with my so busy routine.
1- Throw a flying kiss while working
When I am busy working in the kitchen or on my system and my daughter is playing around I just simply call her and throw her a flying kiss.
She returns me a kiss and then starts smiling.
Clearly visible is how happy she feels when I do so.
Why wouldn’t she feel so? At least I’ve learned this from her.
2- Turn your body to the child – when talking
Scene 1:
Mom is working on the computer and the child comes, “Mommy! Listen!”
Mom while sticking her eyes to the computer screen: “yes! Honey”
Scene 2:
Mom is working on the computer and the child comes, “Mommy! Listen!”
Mom turns her face slightly and says, “Yes! Baby”
Scene 3:
Mom is working on the computer and the child comes, “Mommy! Listen!
Mom turns her rotating chair to the child and says, “yes honey! what it is?”
Now answer the following questions:
- Which of the scenes above is showing the most love and attention? Of course! scene 3.
- How much time does it take to turn the body or the chair, in this case? Just a second?
- How many calories you are burning while turning? So close to zero. In other words, no energy is getting consumed.
- What is the importance of this simple act for your child? You know it!
Look! it’s just as simple.
3- Get to her level when you meet after a gap
My daughter, Dina, use to visit her grandfather with her daddy, who is our next-door neighbor too.
When she goes, I usually work. Most of the time I write these blog posts when she is with her daddy.
She spends almost an hour there and when she comes back, I welcome her just like we have met after ages.
She knocks on the door and I just start speaking louder and start telling her how I was waiting badly for her.
I open the door and get to her level; hug her and ask her how she has been there. What she did and how I was missing her!
It just takes a minute and I’m done with making her feel more special and valuable.
She becomes so excited about everything and I can see the spark in her eyes.
4- Laugh on their silly and weird acts
Some acts she does are not at all funny. I don’t feel like laughing but I do it anyway. Just because she is happy.
Her silly and weird acts are something important and funny for her and just passing a smile or laughing for a little while would make her so happy and excited.
She feels the importance of her and her acts.
5- Don’t miss at least one family meal
Everyone eats! But most of the time we eat at different times. Father may be busier in the office work and coming home late at night.
Mother might be busy cooking.
When Dina was young, I mean when she was not able to eat by herself, I used to feed her at first, then I would eat.
Her father ate his dinner late at night, after his gym.
Later on, I realized that at least one family meal improves the bonding between all family members, and the children feel more secure and connected with the parents.
Now I try to arrange at least one family meal, mostly dinner. It makes my daughter so happy.
6- Give small surprises more often.
This small but lovely act comes from my husband! He does the grocery shopping. I just don’t like anything about “shopping”.
On his every visit to the grocery store, he brings small surprises for her. It could be just a bar of her favorite chocolate or maybe a cup featuring her favorite Disney character.
She just feels so so loved and shows everyone, what her daddy brought for her.
Other than that, we stock some stickers, small toys, colors, small slime packs, and playdough; so we could often give her small surprises.
It doesn’t cost a lot. Just like we keep a box of different colors of playdough that costs around $1. We give her 1 or 2 colors at a time / in a day.
She becomes happy with the small surprise of just a few cents.
7- Say “I love you” more often
Never underestimate the power of these 3 simple words.
This small sentence has some sort of huge effect that even a few months old babies can feel it.
Dina has learned to show her love with this sentence.
“I love you, Mommy! You are so good.” This is what I usually hear from her when she wants to show her affection towards me.
SO do I.
8- Say “Thank you” on little things
Saying Thank you is usually counted as “Manners”. But I don’t agree!
The word “Thank you” is something that shows love and care.
Let’s say, You see someone eating with a fork in an absolute well-mannered way; do you feel connectivity?
No! absolutely, why would you feel so.
But when someone says “Thank you”, how to do you feel?
You feel like you have done something good, that’s making this person happy!
You feel connected!
That’s what children feel.
9- Praise and adore their efforts
“You are being a very good girl,”.
“Mama is so proud of you”.
“That’s my girl.”
So simple but sweet sentences.
How would you feel when someone; your husband, parents, or any friend would say that to you. Not exactly these words; but something similar.
You feel appreciated and would want to do that thing again.
Throwing short praises on little efforts is something having a huge effect.
It makes a child more confident and positive.
Praising in front of others especially the close people just like father and grandparents is also a bonus.
The child feels confident and appreciated.
10- Wise uses of sentences
“I’m cooking something especially for you”.
I say this when I’m cooking and she comes to see me in the kitchen. (She starts missing me as soon as I reach the kitchen door.)
“We are going out so my little girl could have a ride and enjoy.”
Of course not! We are not going for this purpose. You know it!
See! just using the scenarios in your favor would be so helpful in making your child feel more special.
11- Call the child with different sweet names
I call my daughter with different sweet names, like Doll, Deenu baba, sweetu, or candy, etc. She just feels so loved.
She sometimes calls me with such sweet names too.
I’m so in love with this little human.
12- Give a family hug at least once a day
Mommy hugs the baby. Daddy hugs the baby. She feel loved and connected? Of course! she does.
But we do this thing a little bit differently.
Both of us, husband and I, hug her at the same time.
Seems like her feeling of love and connection to both of us multiplies by 100.
She kisses both of us one by one and tightens her hug.
Visibly, she loves it!
It’s just a simple act. A positive parent will never feel any problem in sharing her stuff with the child.
Eating something? Just offer it to your child.
My daughter just loves sharing the first sip from my glass of water.
I offer her when I eat something and she does the same.
14- Wear matching cloths
Have you ever seen couples wearing matching clothes? Or at least combination clothes?
Why do they do this?
It shows some sort of connectivity and is a clue of love.
Children will also feel the same.
You don’t have to buy new matching clothes.
Just matching the colors or the design will do. Use the clothes in your closet and sometimes match the colors.
Don’t ever miss the smallest opportunity to show your love for your child.
15- Take them seriously
Dina came to me. She was really very upset and worried.
She approached me and told me that her doll was crying because her leg was broken.
It just took me 2 minutes to fix her leg.
Dina was so happy and she was thanking me like I’d done something very valuable for her.
So, taking a child seriously is something very very important.
Little things that might not be so important for you, may mean the world to your child.
Taking them seriously and paying attention is crucial.
16- Keep your promises
Keeping the promises you made with your child can help to build her trust in you; which is something really very important factor for improving connectivity and bonding between parents and children.
Even if the child forgets about the promise, still you should keep it. No matter what!
17- Let the child help you if she wants
At the age of “toddlerhood” children are so eager to help their parents with adult chores. It’s pretty common with most toddlers.
Just let them. Helping you will help them learn new things much quicker and develop a sense of being important and useful.
18- Tell them short made-up stories
Made-up stories double the charm of stories in toddlers. They just love hearing about the things to which they can relate.
These kinds of self-made stories also play a very important part in disciplining the child.
My daughter loves all kinds of stories featuring Simba, from The Lion King.
Just find out what suits your child and tell her made-up stories more often.
19- Don’t miss out on the bed-time snuggle
This is the only tip I’m giving you here, that may take some time. But this is so important.
Bedtime is the most crucial time. If you want your child to bond with you more strongly and develop a feeling of being valued, you should never ignore the bedtime snuggle.
Cuddling releases a hormone called oxytocin also called “The happy hormone”.
The child feels safe and loved.
Bedtime memories are long-term memories and what you feel or think at this time; becomes a part of your subconscious.
You can help your child to develop a confident and self-loved personality.
Ask yourself:
- How much time do I really spend with my child?
- What my child is expecting from me?
- Am I trying enough to make my child feel more loved and valued?
- How often do I get to her level?
- Am I using enough sweet words or sentences to show my love and affection?
- How much I’m trying to get my love into her long-term memories?
Action plan
- Start using sweet words and sentences to express your love.
- Stock some small surprises and hide them in a cabinet.
- Start spending at least 2 minutes with the child when you meet after some time and when she is about to sleep.
- Set a goal of spending at least 3 minutes daily getting to the level of your child.
- Share, share, share. Start sharing everything with your child.
What are your thoughts about the article?
Do you have any tips to share too?
Do you have a unique way to make your child feel more loved and valued?
Don’t forget to share in the comments below
Related articles:
How to teach your toddler to share, when she is the only child?
How to become a more patient mom?