LOVE There are specific love messages or affirmations that we ‘offer children and adults to et them know that we love them unconditionally and that we are glad they are doing the developmental tasks that they need to be doing for their age and stage. "I love you and it's OK with me that ‘you are doing your developmental tasks.” Here are the specific unconditional love messages that are important all of our lives, but that put special focus on the task of each developmental stage. Twill address the stages one at a time. You can think about the messages and then decide ‘on 17 ways to let your children know, both by what you say,and what you do, that these messages come from you with truth and sincerity and that you want your children to believe, and to incorporate these esteem: building founda- tion blocks. You can also offer them to yourself, and to everyone else who is important to you Being Hove you andi care foryou willingly. Birth-6 mes. I love you! and I care for you willingly ‘The BEING task starts from birth to 6 ‘months and continues all of our lives, Tre job is to decide to live, to “be.” When your infant has loving, willing care he can lear to trust, to wust his own ability, to call out and get his needs met, and to trust his world. He especially needs to trust his special ‘caregiving one's to be reached-out-to, to be loved and. smiled at, talked to, hugged, and cherished, Each time you say these affirming words or do one of these actions, you help your infant build a firm ground of self-esteem. "But," you say, "How can [let him know I care for ‘him wiltingly when he has colic and Ihave an acute cease of fatigue and guilt, and want to quit?” Do what ‘you can for him, Have him checked by your doctor and try all of the medical suggestions. Tell him. Say, "Baby boy, Hove you, and I want to help, and right now, I don't know what to do, and I'm tired and grumpy, but underneath all that I want you to know that Tove you and I wish you didn' hur.” ‘Then get someone else to care for him for an evening while you get out and have some relief and some fun, Care for yourself. Continue to say and believe this affirmation for him and for yourself forthe rest of your lives. AFFIRMATIONS by Jean Illsley Clarke Doing @B I love you when Hove you you are active hen you are active and and when you ‘are quiet. when you are 618 mos, quiet. ‘The DOING task starts from 6 to 18 months and continues all of our lives. At this age your child separates from your lap and moves out to explore her ‘world. Not the complex worl of politics or philoso phy, but the immediate world of sights, sounds, tastes, textures, shapes, sizes and places. How can you prepare this world for her? Hope- fully, she will have one or two rooms in which to do her exploring freely, with firm gates protecting her from rooms that have the hazards of grown-up comforts. Remove everything that would be unsafe for her and put safety plugs in the electrical outs. Can she pound a toy on the coffee table to find our how that feels and sounds? If not, move the "good" coffee table behind the gate and get something she ‘can pound and climb on. Think of things to put on the table for her—objects that are round, square, smooth, rough, cool, warm, colorful, noisy or quiet and all sturdy or dispensable. Pots, pans, boxes, old magazines, simple toys. She needs things to pile and stack and she nceds safe places she can climb on and roll off. "Ilove you when you are active," She also needs to have you, or someone, available so she can craw up and have a lap-sit and a thomb-suck or sometimes just tug on your leg and zeta pat and a greeting. Sometimes, just when neighbors come and you want them to see her perform, she gets fussy and need to rest. “Iove you when you are quiet." Lether rest. The neighbors can see her later. Allof the ways that you prepare a safe, stimulat- ing, environment for her help her lay down the belief tat she is lovable and capable—esseatial building blocks for self-esteem and for tsting her senses later on in a way that will help her achieve in school This is a busy time for her and for you. Make the effort to get plenty of rest, Build the suppor system ‘you need to swap or buy child care so you can have Some grown-up time away from your busy explorer. Take care of yourself too.whether to steal something with his friends (spiritual, social, emotional, mental) eat innumerable snacks (Physical), do or forget w do his chores (mental, social), argue with you (emotional, mental, social), and deal ‘with his hurt and anger that his bestfriend did him wrong (Social, emotional and spiritual). Meanwhile ‘you and I are wishing he would be quiet, scrape his shoes, be polite, clean his room, and not hassle So you help him build his own self-esteem by exposing him to a wide variety of skill building situations. You are clear about the family rules, negotiating the negotiable ones and enforcing the non- negotiable ones in a matter-of-fact, non-shaming, Avoid, "You can't do that, you don't do that well enough, You will never get that right. You must be interested in my interests." Instead say, "You can learn. believe you can doit. Til watch and cheer. Would you like some help?” Remember that the hassling that ‘hese kids do is part oftheir important exploration of rules and which ones are fiem and what happens when they break them. Hassling and arguing is not some- thing we parents need to take personally, even though swe may need time-out now and then. We lear lots from these busy kids. "love you even when we differ; ove growing with you.” My love is always with you. I trust you to ask for my support. ‘The IDENTITY, SEXUALITY & SEPARATION stage starts at 13 to 19 years and continues all of our lives. ‘As youngsters move from being children to becoming adults, their theme song is "Sometimes I'm Up, Some- times tm Down," They have to lear to handle the ‘complex emotions that accompany their hormonal/ sexual changes as they continue to separate from their parents and move toward an individual identity and a place among grown-ups. ‘Supporting the development of self-esteem during this complex growth period sometimes taxes the patience and flexibility of parents. Adolescents often switch from an unsure, dependent attitude to respon- sible, mature behavior with amazing rapidity. No wonder parents are often out-of-phase with their teen, treating her like a baby when she wants to be a grown- up equal, and expecting her to be responsible when she is feeling confused or neglected. If us sounds famil- iar, forgive yourself. You can’ always know what ‘mood she will be in. You can suppor her self-esteem by letting her know that you are there for her. "Do you want to talk about it?" "Can T help?" “I do care about you!” Phelps to remember that teens revisit earlier developmental tasks to leam to do them in more ‘grown-up ways. You can continue to give your teen all of the affirming messages from the earlier stages. You can continue tobe in charge of the family rules with more and more help from her in setting, negotiating and, enforcing them. "Yes, you must observe curfew.” or, "Yes, you must let us know when you willbe home late, ‘We worry about you.” "No, you may not take the car tonight, You left the gas tank empty last time you of age. ‘You can remember that the early adolescent sometimes breaks rules because those rules are no longer functional for her or to see if you still care enough to maintain the family structure. When the late adolescent breaks rules it may be because she helps herself move on by making the family situation so un- comfortable that she doesn't want to stay home. Don't take it personally. If you hold with the esteem-building ‘words, actions and belief "My love is always with you. Trust you to ask for my support,” she will probably ‘come back as a separated adult, participating in the family aa responsible, loving, grown-up. @ ‘nterdependence, YOUF love matures and expands. You are lovable at every age. Your love matures and expands. Adult ‘The wonderful thing about raising children is that we always have the chance to do it betier and to leam new skills, new ways to love our children and ourselves. Each day we can forgive ourselves for all the opportu- nities missed and start fresh, No matter what ages our children are, it is never 100 late to improve our parent- ing skills and build beter relationships with them, And itis never to late to incorporate these affirming, unconditional love messages for ‘our children and ourselves, as well. Interdependence’ You are lovable at every age Adult Give them, hear them, believe them. Self-esteem is important for everyone. ‘The Need for Developmental Affirmations Give Us Words by Jean Illsley Clarke ~ ~ ‘“We all want to be good parents, lateintolaylanguagewereinplace. © Beginning Affirmations but we don't know how. Put words Each chapter/story focused on one in our mouths.” My husband Dick stopped by my desk, put his hand on my shoulder, and made that request several times while I was writing Self-Esteem: A Family Af- fair. He may have thought he was doing that for himself, but it al- ways helped me focus on the pur- pose of the book. Words. Where would Ifind those words? Ineeded them myself. Not generalizations, notadmonitions,notvaguetheory, but specific target words, bones words that would help me remember what I was supposed to bbe doing as a parent. walked in the daytime andtossed and tured at night trying to get my mind around those words. Gradually they began to take shape. Words to build self-esteem. You are lovable and capable may be the basis of self-esteem, but those words arenot enough. What ifwehadaset of words with special ways to say you are lovable and capable at each age? What if we also had words foreach developmen- talstagetotell parents what to do, what to celebrate, what to insist upon, what to give permission for? That ‘would be good. It: would be even better ifboth of those needs could bbe wrapped into one set. Thad read Sondra Ray's I Deserve Love, (1976) the only affirmation book on the shelves at that time, and I knew that what I wanted wasa set of developmentally based affirmations. I knew I could for- ‘malate those words, but Ialsoknew it would take me a long time. The publisher was pushing for the manuscript and most of the pieces of Transactional Analysis (Berne, 1961) theory that I wanted totrans- developmental stage and the theory pieces were chosen to sup- port growth in that stage, Naming the Stages Thad decided on the age/stage des- ignations - 0 to 6 months as first stage and 6-18 months as the sec- ond rather than Erikson’s (1964) 0-18 month Basic Trust versus Mistrust stage because the experi- enceofparentingababy whostays in one place versus one who gets into everything demands different skills Parents helped me name the stages. I was teaching parenting classes while I was writing the book. The people I was working with didn’tfindstage titles suchas Industry versus Inferiority or Ob- ject Constancy easy to remember, 0 I searched for simple, lay, task designators. Parents in several classes were willing tothink about how words reflected what they ex- perienced with their children. We finally settled on: + Being (0-6 months), * Doing (6-18 months), + Thinking (18 months to3 years), + Power and Identity (3-6years), + Structure (6-12 years), + Identity, Sexuality & Separation (adolescence). I know the names are not parallel word forms, but they work. So, the Transactional Analysis theory pieces and the stage names were in place, but I needed the affirmations in order to finish the stories. Then, one bright day, I found Pamela Levin's (1974) therapeu- tic permissions, a set for each of the stages of childhood. I knew strictly speaking, some of them were not affirmations. They contained some don'ts and they didn'thave as many love messages as I wanted, but they were a won- derful start, I took Pam's mes- sages to my classes and the par- ents said “Yes! Let us have them!” When I asked Pam if I could use her permissions as affirmations for parents, she sai thought of using them that way!” She wasenthusiastic and support- ive and her permissions were pub- lished as affirmations in the Seif- Esteem: A Family Affair book in 1978. In a post face to that book I explained the meaning of each per- mission when used as an affirma- tion, They were also featured in the Self-Esteem: A Family Affair Leader Guide (1981). Recycling Theory In that book I wrote about recy- cling. Weare, according tothetheo- ries put forth by Erik Erikson (1959, 1964), stimulated by some natural rhythm of growth to up- grade earlier developmental tasks throughout our lifetime. Pam Levin named this process reey- cling and it isa theory that fits my life experience. Pam, as a thera- pist, observed that people are trig- gered to recycle earlier stages by life events such as starting a new job, losing a friend, marriage, di- vorce, or death of a loved one. I, as a parent educator, noticed that people are also triggered by their children to recycle a stage their child is growing through.Chicago with his stampof approval on all 53 affirmations but with agreementthat something wasstill missing from the adult set. said good-bye tomy son and found my way into the conference venue, confident that I would soon see someone knew. My friend, Elaine Childs-Gowell rushed up to me with | these udapndene ‘You can trust your inner ‘wisdom. can trust your inner wisdom!” Laughter, sigh, relief, thankful- ness. The missing affirmation. Elaine welcomed me to insert it in ty list. Interestingly, the adult affirmations were hand written and there was a space at the point where the new affirmation fit perfectly in the flow of messages, The Educational Affirmations were first published in 1986 in the September WE and in the six Help! For Parents (Clarke, 1986) books that I co-authored/edited with 18 parent educator colleagues. Those books have now been combined into two volumes, Help! For Par- ents of Children from Birth to Five and Help! For Parents of School- Age Children and Teenagers (Clarke, et al,1993). COMPARISONS You Affirmations Versus | Affirmations ‘The major difference between the ‘educational affirmationsand other sets of affirmations, besides the developmental base, is the use of ‘you instead ofl. The theory behind affirmations is well known; get: person to repeat an “I am. sage enough times and the belief will set in and override the old message that said, “I'm not...” I have never been comfortable with one person telling another to say, “I am..” Transactional Analysis (Berne, 1961) Ego State theory helped me to understand and ar- ticulate my discomfort. Let us say, as an example, that I have a deep belief that I'do not belong, then you tell me to say twenty timesaday, Tbelonghere.” Tobject. « First - No matter how much good will you have toward. this is your message, not mine. * Second - Saying your preserib- ed, “Ibelonghere,”can set up dissonance in me and even more anxiety, discomfort or depression than I had before. * Third- If try to say it and give up, Ihave added another fail- ture, another proof that I don’t belong her If, instead, you say to me, “You belong here,” I ean listen to you with all three of my Ego States, Parent, Adult! and Child. My Par- ent Ego State might say, “She seems to mean that!” My Adult might say, “It seems reasonable that I ought to belong here.” My Child can say, “No way!” But the thinking, the internal dialogue between the Ego States, has started. Then if my Parent says, “This fits with my values,” and my Adult says, “This seems to be a healthy message,” the affirmation now belongstome, Thave chosen it. I ean say to my child within, “You belong here.” ‘My Child can argue or disbelieve, but if my Parent and Adult Ego States unite to insist on giving the message and deliberately choose tobehave asf belong here, even- tually my Child willspontaneously say, “Ibelonghere.”The belief will not be secure at first, but with constant Parent and Adult rein- forcement, the belief will come. If this does not happen, it is a sign that I need more than self-affir- mation, I need the added strength and wisdom of acounselororthera- pist. You does not always start the af- firmation message. Sometimes it says feel this for you, as in Tove whoyou are, That is very different from telling someone to say, “I love who I am.” 1 feel very strongly about the pre- sumptuousness of telling people to say, I...” Ibis one of the reasons I was first attracted to Pam Levin's (1974) you messages. Ifa person develops his own “ messages, that is fine. Douglas Bloch has written a book, Positive Self-Talk for Children, (1993) that does an excellent job of spelling outhow tohelpa child identify the affirmations he needs in the first part of the book. After that mas- terful beginning however, the au- thor slips into the old way and prescribes affirmations for adults to say in a plethora of situations. Too bad. Better to use the fine model he presents to help adults as well as children develop their own affirmations. COMPARISON With Pam Levin’s Messages How do the educational affirmations compare with Pam Levin's therapeutic permission messages? I hope they are viewed ‘companion pieces, one set to be used in therapeutic venues, the other in educational settings. A few of the messages are exactly the same or nearly the same. The educational affirmations are all stated positively and some are broadened. The therapeutic You don’t haveto hurry isa great relief to adults who are in the habit of rushing, over scheduling or over working. Children didn't always hearit that way. One five-year-old who heard it looked up, startled, and said, “But I wasn't hurrying.Carole and I frequently get letters and phone calls telling us how peoplehave used the affirmations. A child care provider made small red pillows and wrote a being affirmation on each pillow. The children soon learned to choose the pillowsthey wanted, takethem tothe teacher to have the affirma- tion read, and use the pillows at nap time. While writing her papers, a gra- duate student programmed her computer toflash affirmationsran- domly when it was booted up. Her father liked the idea so much he programmed his computer to af- firm him. Amom created a birthday book for each of her children by putting a picture from the previous year, and affirmation, anda short story about the child, the family, and that affirmation on each page of a photo album, A teenager, who had been given a setof small affirmation ovalsthree years before and had said nothing about them, lost his billfold. When it was found, he checked first to see if his affirmation, I Jove who ‘you are, was still there. A. seven-year-old carried his affirmations in his cap sohe could get them into hishead. For weeks he refused to take off his cap be- cause he didn’t want themessages to go alll over. Large love affirmations on the walls of a pediatrician’ fatty sos Powe office remind Allot the doctor and | Your feelings: are OK parents about \ with me. what children need. Parents put large love affirmation ovalson the wallsofthe nursery to remind them about what the baby needs, A teenager put large love ovals on her bedroom ceiling to re- “evweeet \ mind herself Youare | thatsheislov- lovable at | able inspite of every age. / acne and ado- lescent ups and downs, The affirmation posters hang on the walls of a high school special edueation room, A student asked that the posters be moved higher on thewall sohecould see them all from his seat. On the first day of school, fifth graders found large love ne ovals placed What you \ cleverly in needis, | their room. important } You belong tome. / here was on the door. You can grow at your own pace was in the plant. What you need is important to me ‘was over the water fountain. Dur- ing the following weeks other sets were similarly presented. ‘A middle aged woman was intro- duced othe affirmationsinawork- shop, She thought, “T'm doing just fine as an adult, but I've never heard most of those messages. 1 want to find a way to get them.” She used them to help heal the residue from having grown upin a family with alcoholism. ‘The being affirmation posterhung on the wall of the hospital room. Whoever cameintotheroom pulled an affirmation from the bow! on the dresser or chose one from the poster and read it to the patient during his last months of Lou Gehrig's Disease. A grandmother used fabric paint to print affirmations on her grandehild’s T-shirts. A teacher in a bilingual program asks his class to translate one af- firmation a week from English to Spanish or vico versa. The week- Jong emphasison that affirmation buildslanguage skills and bolsters student's selfesteem at the same time Another Spanish teacher bookmarks with English affirmations on oneside andSpan- ish on the other. a Sing Yes! - first presented the affirmations in publicworkshopin Indianapolisin 1987. In the audience was composer Darrell Faires. He and his colleague Joy Roberts approached me after the workshop to say that Darrell ‘would compose and they would pub- lish songsbased on the affirmations. Imagine! I was in first-time-pre- sented-in-public-to-a-professional- audience-how-would-the- affirmations-be-accepted apprehen- sion and here was someone who was going to write songs about them. I ‘musthave stuttered because Darrell informed me thathe was not asking my permission, he was telling me. Six weeks later the first audiotape arrived, The testing process ech- oed the way the affirmations had been tested. After months of test ing and rewriting, the album was complete - 4 tapes with sixty-three songs, 2 tapes of accompaniment music only, words, and sheet mu- sic, Astounding. They are pub- lished by Shalom Publications (Paires, 1988) Thavehad interesting experiences with these songs. After they were tested and finalized I set. about learning them by playing them on the car radio while I was driving. ‘Thismeant heard song after song,several times. Irritated, I deter- and created a tape titled Self-Es- mined that I would listen te it teem and Developmental enough times to learn it: That Affirmations. That tape went out: didn’t seem to work. I wondered to educators across thenation and. why I couldn't learn it. I decided contains an update on my affirma- that it was the fault of the song. tion theory-an explanation of why Darrell had written asonginwhich themessages start with you rather © the intervals wore toe difficult to” than + and’gave me « chanics to” sing. I listened carefully and the. talk about some of the individual intervals were not too difficult. - affirmations. . het 3 decided that Dacrel hed s edt written a song that di Growing well. I listened again; it flowed. I “ Ps sang it out loud, very loud, and. UP Again realized, as I listened to myself, i that Ihad changed the wordal The The affirmations are an integral ‘song is? I love you when you're’ bartofthe book Growing Up Again, active and when you're quist toa. Parenting Ourselves, Parenting. Busy, busy, busy or yery quiet. 1 O47 Children which I wrote with love you, yes I do, I was singing it:: . Connie Dawson, published in 1989, Tlove you wher you're active and Connie and and I hope that this is when you're activetao,Buay,bury, the bridge book between self help bay & very aétive, Tove yea, yoo Books sind plarenting books. Our if premise ile they are raising their chil. aan eeeeca chek hed dren and notte neglect their che just sung about. My mother was dren’ while they aré doing thelr. ME LEE HeFe eg aguas Ta Brmatoar ect festared tn ‘Bie Gaal ase of pro. ‘gramming for children andaé sup- _port for recycling adult needs. mers ate woven carat ht Grd “What are’ © ‘=, developmental stage: Being, Do- You doing? What kindof mischief” ‘tts Whe: Backt chart offers concise ‘are you in? Why ere you quiet” but, thorough information. on ‘We even learned to color noisily! _Péychosocial growth for that stage. \ When Itriedtosingthesongagain The affirmations support the in in the worrect way, it was very terrelated jobs of the child, helpful hard to get out those quiet words. Parent behaviors, and activitie Tused the help from the song to that reinforce the adults in their finish off that piece ofhealingvery recycling or growing up again. © Fwere quiet ouikly: ‘There have been many requests forpermission to copy these charts is or to include them in other Audio Tape cerenting Bo Joan Comeau has created Family The affirmations are also a regu: Information Service, a wonderful tar part of the activities presented publication for family life educa- in the Growing Up Again Leader tors. Six times a yearit consists of Guide (1991), written materials. The other six months itfocuses on an audio tape about a concept or a book that is Video Tapes supportive to family life eduea- In 1991 I got a call from Marilyn tors. In 1990,Joan interviewedme Cohen saying that the University 10 of Washington's Telecommunica- tions Center was going to produce a set of video tapes for use with Spanish speaking migrant work- ers. These tapes would be the first that were produced in the United Statesin Spanish featuring people ‘whose first language’ was Span- ish. Other films that have been made with Anglos have ‘voice overlay or Spanish | ~” Would 1like to be a consultant to the project? Of course I was de- lighted to, One of the things that pleased me was the plan to base thevideos on my work, notte trans- late directly. Marilyn wanted to ‘ise the developmental approach ‘and the affirmations. Estela Carrera Plots with the help of sev- eral other people started thetrans- lation of the affirmations. Estela, ‘who was a trained Self-Esteem: A Family: Affair facilitator, starred inthe films. The project wasnamed. Platica de. plate Autoestima ‘Tn 1993 a leader guide to go with films was completed. Estela,, Gatbous, and sated the ‘guide and Teresd Ruiz de Somecurcio-Kamrath did the final editing and was, re the completion of Carole Gesme was igh ths af affirmations in lass participants canhavead ov eae proce salce of Spanish or English affirmation In 1998 Marilyn Cohen and tho de- partment of Telecommunications: also created four videos based on Growing Up Again. Those videos feature the affirmations in English.