Filling the Emotional Tank By speaking your child’s own love language, you can fill his “emotional tank” with love. When your child feels loved, he is much easier to discipline and train than when his “emotional tank” is running near empty.
Every child has an emotional tank, a place of emotional strength that can fuel him through the challenging days of childhood and adolescence. Just as cars are powered by reserves in the gas tank, our children are fueled from their emotional tanks. We must fill our children’s emotional tanks for them to operate as they should and reach their potential.
But with what do we fill these tanks? Love, of course, but love of a particular kind that will enable our children to grow and function properly.
We need to fill our children’s emotional tanks with unconditional love, because real love is always unconditional.
Unconditional love is a full love that accepts and affirms a child for who he is, not for what he does. No matter what he does (or does not do), the parent still loves him. Sadly, some parents display a love that is conditional; it depends on something other than their children just being. Conditional love is based on performance and is often associated with trainingtechniques that offer gifts, rewards, and privileges to children who behave or perform in desired ways.
Of course, it is necessary to train and discipline our children —but only after their emotional tanks have been filled (and refilled—they can deplete regularly). Only unconditional love can prevent problems such as resentment, feelings of being unloved, guilt, fear, and insecurity. Only as we give our children unconditional love will we be able to deeply understand them and deal with their behaviors, whether good or bad.
Molly remembers growing up in a home of modest financial resources. Her father was employed nearby and her mother was a homemaker, except for a small part-time job. Both parents were hardworking people who took pride in their house and family. Molly’s dad cooked the evening meal, and he and Molly cleaned up the kitchen together. Saturday was a day for weekly chores, and Saturday nights they enjoyed hot dogs or burgers together. On Sunday mornings, the family went to church and that evening they would spend time with relatives.
When Molly and her brother were younger, their parents read to them almost every day. Now that they were in school,
Mom and Dad encouraged them in their studies. They wanted both children to attend college, even though they did not have this opportunity themselves. In junior high, one of Molly’s friends at school was Stephanie. The two had most classes together and often shared lunch. But the girls didn’t visit each other at home. If they had, they would have seen vast differences. Stephanie’s father was a successful executive who was able to provide generously for the family. He was also away from home most of the time. Stephanie’s mother was a nurse. Her brother was away at a private school. Stephanie had also been sent to a boarding school for three years until she begged to attend the local public school. With her father out of town and her mother working so much, the family often went out for meals.
Molly and Stephanie were good friends until the ninth grade,
when Stephanie went off to a college-prep school near her grandparents. The first year, the girls exchanged letters; after that, Stephanie began dating and the letters became less frequent and then stopped. Molly formed other friendships and then started dating a guy who transferred to her school. After Stephanie’s family moved away, Molly never heard from her again.
If she had, she would have been sad to know that after marrying and having one child, Stephanie was arrested as a drug dealer and spent several years in prison, during which time her husband left her. In contrast, Molly was happily married with two children.
What made the difference in the outcome of two childhood friends? Although there is no one answer, we can see part ofthe reason in what Stephanie once told her therapist: “I never felt loved by my parents. I first got involved in drugs because I wanted my friends to like me.” In saying this, she wasn’t trying to lay blame on her parents as much as she was trying to understand herself.
Did you notice what Stephanie said? It wasn’t that her parents didn’t love her, but that she did not feel loved. Most parents love their children and also want their children to feel loved, but few know how to adequately convey that feeling. It is only as they learn how to love unconditionally that they will let their children know how much they are truly loved.
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