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Show Childs Capacity to Love Can Be Limited by Parents by his parents, his capacity to show feelings toward others grows and his innate ability to love and express ex-press affection is kept alive. by Dr. M. Ford McBride If children are born with an unlimited capacity to love, why is it destroyed so soon in some children? Research shows that the child's ability to love can be severely jeopardized if his needs for a secure envior-nment, envior-nment, pleasurable events and close interpersonal inter-personal relationships are not met. Parental intervention plays an important part in maintaining and preserving this quality in children. Psychologist Abraham Maslow says that a child to strengthen his capacity to love, his physiological needs and physical protection from harm must be met first. As these needs are supplied the child experiences positive feelings of comfort, satisfacton and well being. Conversely, Con-versely, if the child's physiological needs are not realized, he experiences ex-periences hunger, thirst, thir-st, cold, pain or other physical discomfort. Along with these physical discomforts he feels frustration and fear which hampers the expression of love. After physiological needs are taken care of, emotional and social needs can be met. If the child's emotional needs are not met, his capacity to show feelings toward others it adversely affected. Often, parents feel that they are fulfilling their duty by only meeting their childrens physical needs. These parents hope that emotional and social needs will be met by someone else such as friends, teachers or other adults. This is especially true with teenage children. To maintain a child's emotional strength, love, affection, companionship, com-panionship, approval, acceptance and respect must be part of his life. If these emotional supports are supplied |