Love bombs

I read this article the other day, and liked it. It describes "love-bombing" as a technique for re-setting a child who is particularly off kilter - giving them a whole day of mummy (or daddy) love and permissiveness. Read the article before you judge, because it's hard to describe succinctly.

I know some people maintain that life is hard, and the sooner kids grasp that fact, the better able they'll be to deal with it. So they let their babies cry themselves to sleep because they'll have to fall asleep on their own for the rest of their lives, or force the shy-phase preschooler to talk to strangers because that's how polite adults behave.

Personally, I think we would do no harm - and maybe plenty of good - by love-bombing our babies as much as we can while they're small. I'm not talking wild and unmeasured indulgence here, but just taking the opportunity to hold them and love them up good and proper while they'll let us. It should pay dividends now and later. Life is hard, and if we can give our kids a protective cushion they can count on at home, they'll be better able to cope with the jagged edges of outside.

This works on the large and small scale. We all know that you can't spoil a baby - for the first year, more or less, there's no way that miniature person is trying to manipulate you: they're just doing what comes naturally - looking for comfort, food, warmth, reassurance. You can't love them too much. But even when they're older; if I spend half an hour during the baby's naptime watching kids' tv with my four-year-old snuggled on my lap, I count that as money in the bank towards the rest of the day's debits, when I might be yelling at (sorry, strongly exhorting) him to put his shoes on so we can go out, or putting his sister first because she's smaller, again.

So go love your children while you can, before they do something really annoying and/or grow up.