LOVE

A unified emotion comprising tenderness, affection, and devotion to the well-being of

another person or persons.In more specific terms, love involves:

 Feelings of empathy, the ability to enter into the feelings and share the experiences of
the loved one.
 Pleasure in actively devoting thought, energy, time and all other resources to the
loved one.
 Full acceptance of the uniqueness and individuality of the loved one and his right to
be himself.
Love takes many forms and has many expressions. Erich Fromm explains five relationships
in his book Art of loving which are following:
 Brotherly Love
 Parental Love
 Erotic Love
 Self Love
 God’s Love
PARENTAL LOVE
Parental love is characterized by warmth, affection, care, comfort, concern, support,
acceptance or simply love that a child can feel from  their parents. The parents’ love can be
felt when they kiss, hug, praise, compliment, or say nice things to or about their children.
Without parental love, children feel rejected by their parents. Parental rejection is
experienced as cold, unaffectionate, hostile, aggressive, indifferent, neglected or lack of care.

Rejection is manifested in behavior such as hitting, pinching, mocking, shouting, cursing,

uncaring, unconcerned, or saying unkind or sarcastic things to the child. Some parents may
also appear bitter, resentful, irritable, impatient toward their children.

The Power Of Parental Love

Parents are attachment figures according to the Attachment Theory. A quality parent-child
relationship is uniquely important to children, since a child’s sense of emotional security and
psychological well-being is dependent on it. As a result, parental love has an unparalleled
influence on a child’s character, personality development and outcomes.
A parental love can effect children in following ways:
 SUCCESS IN LIFE:
A feeling of acceptance and parental love during childhood is one of the best predictors of
future success, happiness, and life satisfaction for adults.
 PHYSICAL HEALTH: 
The Harvard Mastery Of Stress Study, was conducted in the 1950s. Researchers found that
those who did not experience parental love were more than twice as likely to develop
physical illnesses 35 years later, including coronary artery disease, hypertension, duodenal
ulcer, and alcoholism.
 SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-ADEQUACY:
Children who grow up feeling loved and accepted by their parents tend to have a higher self-
esteem. Those who feel rejected as children develop low self-esteem and self-worth. Their
view of themselves tends to reflect that of their parents. Lack of parental love and acceptance
left them feeling unlovable and unworthy, which led to low self-worth.
  ACADEMIC COMPETENCE:
Academic achievement is also higher among children who perceive being loved and
accepted.
 EMOTIONAL REGULATION:
Children develop their own skills by observing their parents’ emotional regulation behaviors .
Children, whose mothers show loving and caring emotions, use very different strategies to
handle emotional problems.Children with accepting and loving parents tend to have better
emotional regulation.

 Mental health:
Those who grew up feeling rejected are more likely to develop depression, substance abuse
and other mentally-related issues. They also tend to have more behavior problems, conduct
disorder and delinquency.

What Can Affect Parental Love?:

The bonding between parents and children can lead to parental love and following things can
affect parents and children bond:
a. PARENTAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Parents personality, mental well-being and attachment representations have been linked to
early  bonding and parental love.For example, studies have shown that prenatal love tends to
be better if the mother is more extroverted, conscientious, and agreeable.
Higher levels of depression or anxiety symptoms of mother during pregnancy are negatively
related to the formation of the prenatal maternal bond.
b. CHILD CHARACTERISTICS:
Infant temperament has been found to be associated with parental bonding. A child with a
more difficult temperament causes more parental stress and receives less parental bonding.
Children with these characteristics show more negative affect and  less self-regulation. They
are also more likely to develop behavioural problems.

PARENTAL LOVE IS THE ONLY

LOVE THAT IS
TRULY SELFLESS, UNCONDITIONAL
AND FORGIVING.