Love

What is love, really? Specifically, what interests me is how does a child "understand" the concept of love?

It is often said that all parents in the world love their children. I have no doubt of the truth of that statement. It is then presumable that the parents either say it verbally or say it with actions that we considered 'loving'. Love is a concept. It is - for the lack of better description, as quoted from my favorite source of knowledge Wikipedia - a constellation of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness. I am perplexed by how a child, a young child, if you may, grasp this whole concept of love.

Assume you say, "I love you", to your child every day. They start to develop language skills since 12 months old, but when do they start to understand concepts? I'm sure child expert can easily answer that question. I am not a parent, but let me try. I suppose, in child-rearing, when we say we will do something, it's very important that we do it. In fulfilling our promises, we gain the child's trust. They are observing and mimicking our every action. When we say we love them, they may associate the word 'love' with our every day actions, cuddling them, cooing them, playing with them, caring them (now 'care' is another vague concept), fulfilling our promises. In addition and perhaps most importantly, the intangible emotional connection with the child. I suppose love transmits that way, the accumulation of all our actions and our emotional relationship translate to love.

I may be completely wrong, this is indeed a curious subject to explore...

Happy Sunday.