In honor of the birth of baby Benjamin, here is a series of posts about children and their emotional development:
Gary Smalley and John Trent have written about children's needs for blessing, and how devastating it is when a child does not receive blessing. What is the blessing? To express it as a formula: " Love +Boundaries = Blessing."
In other words, in order for a child to gain a sense of blessing, the parents must provide unconditional love and acceptance along with appropriate boundaries. The setting of boundaries reinforces the message of love by establishing fences around the child; fences that not only keep danger out, but help the child know where the safe territory is. The impulse toward blessing seems to be innate and God-given. Some people go to their graves never having received a blessing, but trying nevertheless to get it. In the presence of Blessing, children can become healthy Persons in Christ, whole individuals. The following schema, based on the work of John Bowlby describes this process:
ATTACH →→→ SEPARATE →→→ INDIVIDUATE
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