Acceptance is what we want from that which we perceive to be God. We want God to know us and all our imperfections, and to still love us unconditionally. My spiritual teacher used to say that when you fall down and get dirty, God picks you up, brushes off all the dust, and holds you in his lap, never judging you for falling, even if you do it over and over again. As parents, we want to emulate this paradigm, and, in addition, teach our children how to avoid some of the sinkholes and other pitfalls that may be there to trip them. One study showed that if praise is connected with touch, the child takes it in 85 percent of the time, while if it is only given verbally, the child accepts it only 15 percent of the time.
Criticism makes children self-critical and cripples their confidence.
It is important to reinforce the positive by a factor of ten over the negative. I remember going from joy to numbness to fear to wonder to acceptance, and back again, in those first weeks. Finally accepting we were pregnant allowed my husband and I to begin planning how we wanted our lives to change, what changes we needed to make, and to begin reading up on all our choices. During both pregnancies, it was a big project. The second time, we had the added stress of a downwardly mobile financial situation, and a two year old who was still nursing, while, at the same time, I was in the midst of writing my first book.