Your kid is running upstairs and you stop them: “Hey, before you go . . .” You’re watching TV and your daughter is walking into the other room: “Hey, I need to tell you something . . .” Your boys are wrestling in the backyard and the door opens and you come out: “Hey, guys . . .”
They think you’re going to remind them about some piece of schoolwork. Or criticize what they’re wearing. Or tell them to stop roughhousing.
No, you’re going to hit them with those words we can’t say often enough: I love you.
That it catches our kids by surprise when we tell them we love them? That we only want to put our feelings about them out there in the open, just so they know, and they’re confused by it? That’s our fault, not theirs. It says something about us, not them. And it’s something we, not they, have to fix.