Eleanor Roosevelt had a rough childhood. She was born to a rich family, but her father struggled with addiction and died young. Her mother was always difficult and judgmental, but she was still her mother, and Eleanor was devastated when she died at age 29…and then devastated again just months later when her father died. She was sent to live with her grandmother, a woman who, it became clear very quickly, was the source of Eleanor’s mother’s emotional issues and judgmental behavior.

It was a dreary, painful existence that didn’t change until Eleanor was sent to school in London. There, at a special school for girls, she met her teacher Marie Souvestre who finally saw in Eleanor not a plain, shy girl but someone who was special, who had talent and ambitions and the ability to make a difference in the world. “Attention and admiration were the things throughout all my childhood that I most wanted,” Eleanor later reflected, “because I was made to feel so conscious of the fact that nothing about me would attract attention or would bring me admiration!”

Of course, none of us subject our kids to the kind of experiences young Eleanor endured–which by any reasonable standard were abusive–but her relief at finally being given attention and admiration is still something we can learn from. Don’t we want that ourselves? In our jobs? In our communities? In our marriages? Why wouldn’t our kids want the same things in their young, fragile lives? And who could it possibly be more meaningful to come from than us?

As we’ve said before, it’s hard to be a kid. Kids are uncertain. They’re overwhelmed. They doubt themselves. They wonder where they fit in, whether they matter. It’s our job to help them with this. To let them know that they are loved, that they are special, that they are enough. To give them the attention and admiration they deserve.