Valentines Day seems like a perfect time to nurture our little lovers with a lot more love. It seems everywhere you turn, we’re bombarded by news that’s fueled with anger or fear. It gets harder and harder to shield our young children, our budding minds, our future, our hope from these images of intolerance and hate that can leave long lasting impressions on their psyche.
Love is not learned. If you’ve spent any time with an infant, you’ve felt that unconditional and accepting love that we are all born with. You’ve felt it and you know that it’s within us all. We’re born with it, but like all forms of life, it doesn’t grow unless its fed and nourished and nurtured and honored. It can be extinguished as we grow older with each event that we find disappointing and hurtful, each occurrence that shatters our naïveté, each situation that breaks our heart. We are creatures of habit and we become what surrounds us.
Working with children in kindergarten and preschool, and even toddlers and infants, gives us parents, educators, aunts, uncles, siblings and friends, an important responsibility to nurture the magic of our children’s love. We are responsible to receive it fully and return it tenfold. To be honored by it and respect it. To encourage it and draw from it. To remember that without it, fear and anger and self-loathing and insecurity can easily find its way into their hearts.
Talking to our kids about love, singing songs and reading books about love can leave lasting impressions that will hold fast when they grow older and are in situations that may not honor their true spirit. They can draw from an understanding of respect and possibly see the big picture when they might feel stuck in a painful situation that requires every ounce of their being to overcome. They can be that person that stands up for someone that is being humiliated or degraded because they know that they are full of love and they know what it means to love.
Our Valentines Song is really easy to teach young children. It is a call and response with simple lyrics about people and things that we love and how we show our love by honoring and respecting them.
Lyrics: (Love Song, Valentines Day Song for Kids)
There are so many things to love
There are so many things to love
The birds, the trees, the sky above
The birds, the trees, the sky above
I love my mom
I love my mom
I love my dad
I love my dad
I love my brother
I love my brother
I love my sister
I love my sister
I love my nanna
I love my nanna
I love my grandpa
I love my grandpa
I love my friends
I love my friends
I love my dog
I love my dog
LOVE
I love you
I love you
You love me
You love me
We take turns
We take turns
We are a team
We are a team
I am nice to you
I am nice to you
I share with you
I share with you
I play with you
I play with you
Yes I love you
Yes I love you
LOVE
LOVE
L-O-V-E, Love
LOVE
L-O-V-E, Love
This Valentines Day, while your kids are passing out Valentines, they may be just as excited to give out Valentines as they are to receive them. Valentines Day can be a day to show our friends how much we honor them and appreciate them!