The Importance of Creating I Love You Signals for Your Children
I love you signals are a great way to connect with your child in a way other than verbally. In my experience, my child beams when they see me make our I love you sign from across the room. I want to encourage you to make up your own I love you sign language with your child.
My boys and I say, “I love you infinity”. Sometimes I even say, “I love you infinity to the power of infinity”. To be quite honest, “to the moon and back” just doesn’t seem like quite the amount I’m looking for.
Researched Based Best Parenting Practices
While doing the research for the article, 21 Ways to Say I Love You to Your Child, I studied the top ways adults remember their parents showing them love when they were children. My intention was to find ways to show my kids I love them that stick in the memory.
I want to be purposeful throughout this time that I have them in my home. There are ways that I want them to remember me. I tell them that I love them so much the only person who could love them more is God. For some reason, this sticks.
Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them.
~Richard L. Evans
In my research, I found that people remember when their parents had a hand signal that meant I love you. They remember the moments their parents showed them their family’s I love you signals. Many can still visualize their parent doing the gesture. These are the types of things I want my kids to have in their memory.
Creating Your I Love You Signals
I knew I had to come up with a sign. I wanted it to be authentic to our family culture, so we would use it genuinely. We had been saying, “I love you infinity” for some time when I read the book, Infinity and Me to the boys. This book does a nice job conveying the meaning of infinity to young children. Through this book, my boys learned what the infinity symbol looked like.
This is when I had the Aha Moment. I showed them how we could make the infinity sign with our fingers. We have been using it ever since. What I love about this is we can use it whenever we are in a location where we need to be quiet or when we are at a distance. For example, if one of the boys look at me from the T-ball field, I can do our signal, and they beam! Recently, I was away for 5 days. I would send the infinity sign to them through the text of whoever was keeping them.
At the same time, I use the sign during challenging times as well. Mama always said, “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all. So in strenuous MOMents I just look at them and say, “Here’s your sign!”
Call to Action
If this sounds like something that would work into your family culture, you are welcome to use our sign. Or make up your own sign. If the ideas aren’t coming to you, you can download the 10 Ways to Say I Love You With a Hand Signal to get an idea. Maybe it will spark a new idea for you. However you generate your family’s I Love You Signal, be intentional about using it to make a connection with your child and an impact on how they remember you.I Want the 10 Ways to Say I Love You With a Hand Signal PDF
I would love for you to comment and tell us what sign your family uses to say I Love You to each other.
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