{"id":3525,"date":"2017-02-11T19:47:15","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T19:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/?p=3525"},"modified":"2017-02-11T19:49:32","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T19:49:32","slug":"children-can-teach-us-love-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2017\/02\/children-can-teach-us-love-valentines-day.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Let Children Teach Us About Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s an expression, “We are supposed to be getting better with age.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m not necessarily certain this is true in the area of love.<\/em><\/p>\n

I think it’s possible we love worse, not better. Less and not more. Poorly rather than richly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But children, they possess an ability to nurture and foster this emotion and a generosity in expressing it.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Children enter this world as\u00a0proud proclaimers of love.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"baby-boy-hat-covered-101537\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A child will pluck a flower. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A child will scribble a love portrait. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A child will mold clay into an ‘I love you.’<\/em><\/p>\n

And this\u00a0is just the tip of the proverbial love mountain a child will scale.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

They will hug you and kiss you.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

They will cry when you leave them and shout when you return.<\/em><\/p>\n

They will hold your hand and they will snuggle beside you.<\/em><\/p>\n

They will declare you beautiful and handsome, smart and funny, nice and silly.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

They will tell you that you are the most important person in their world.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

They will want to spend time with you and beg you to tell another story or sing another song.<\/em><\/p>\n

Children will love you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They will use paper, crayons, clay, flowers, words, motion, anything at their disposal to make sure you understand your love makes their world go round.<\/em><\/p>\n

They are proud proclaimers of love.<\/p>\n

And we can learn from them:<\/em><\/p>\n

Children interpret love and spread it further.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Children are shamelessly generous with love.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Children are master communicators of love.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They have all\u00a0the\u00a0Love Languages<\/em> covered.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, they will\u00a0make you feel loved.<\/p>\n

And then, we grow up and we allow life to interrupt love. We get confused by things like ego, work, and stress.<\/em><\/p>\n

We love worse, not better. Less and not more. Poorly rather than richly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When those we love are often in desperate need of a flower plucked, a scribbled love portrait, or a molded ‘I love you.’<\/em><\/p>\n

When we are in need of getting better with age.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And when only love can make that possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Photo courtesy of Pexels)<\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist
\non Twitter @colleenorme
\non Pinterest @colleensheehyorme
\nE-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com
\nwww.colleensheehyorme.com<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

(Photo courtesy of Pexels)<\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist
\non Twitter @colleenorme
\non Pinterest @colleensheehyorme
\nE-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com
\nwww.colleensheehyorme.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an expression, “We are supposed to be getting better with age.” I’m not necessarily certain this is true in the area of love. I think it’s possible we love worse, not better. Less and not more. Poorly rather than richly. But children, they possess an ability to nurture and foster this emotion and a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,223],"tags":[18,68,56,94,5,97,12,4,80,81],"class_list":["post-3525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children","category-communication","tag-children","tag-communication","tag-inspirational","tag-kids","tag-love","tag-parenthood","tag-parenting","tag-relationships","tag-valentines","tag-valentines-day"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Let Children Teach Us About Love - How Great Thou Part<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2017\/02\/children-can-teach-us-love-valentines-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Let Children Teach Us About Love - How Great Thou Part\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There’s an expression, “We are supposed to be getting better with age.” I’m not necessarily certain this is true in the area of love. I think it’s possible we love worse, not better. Less and not more. Poorly rather than richly. 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Born to my native Brooklyn parents, I have a love of all things city and all things country. I found myself in the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which prior to The Office, nary a soul could envision less you found yourself on the hills of Interstate 81. I was held up there while I pursued my B.S. in Business. I have two passions: Business marketing and writing. The two are not so terribly different. Why? Cultivating a brand is in essence the story and the connecting of the dots of a corporate entity. I write features for various magazines and newspapers and I am a national divorce columnist (what can I say things didn\u2019t turn out quite the way I thought they would). I am also a former business columnist. For more than fifteen years, I spent my summers on the Jersey Shore in what I call my \u2018out of state\u2019 clothes once again magnetized to the northerners I find so familiar. If I were to brand my writing, I would say I write of LOVE. That is the core from which I begin most stories. I find myself drawn to dig for the moments in the story that are the passion that drive the message. It may be the love of what originally started a business or an authentically motivated personal profile, or simply the love of a subject being investigated which compels me to write. My forever favorite form of writing is the human interest essay or what I call, \u201cAn Interview With Life.\u201d The average day that is explored and somehow once again instills in us a joie de vivre\u2026..a joy of life. These human moments are the Hope Virus that spreads amongst us and can\u2019t help but propel us into better human beings with a larger sense of the world.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/author\/corme"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3525"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3669,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3525\/revisions\/3669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}