Innately, we seek to be respected. To be admired. To be wanted. To be loved. We want to feel empowered. We want to be believed in. We want to matter.

Every person wants this…and your kid is one of those people.

There’s a haunting passage in Mary Renault’s beautiful historical novel The Last of The Wine, where Alexis explains what drew him to Socrates, even more so than his own father. His father, we’re made to see, was distant and restrained, often unyielding and in the way of the ancients, had at first considered his son too weak to be worth raising. But Socrates—a lover of the mind—saw much potential in young Alexis, whom he sat next to in a music class which he had taken despite being rather old. “Here is a father who would not think me a disgrace to him,” Alexis says, “but would love me, and would not want to throw me away on the mountain.”

In short, Socrates saw Alexis. He encouraged him. He took him seriously. He made time for him. He gave him the things that every person craves…and deserves. But who do we crave it most from? Who do our kids deserve it most from? Who does it mean the most coming from? From Mom and Dad.

So give it to them. Give it to them freely, deliberately, and often. Because coming from you, it doesn’t just build them up—it shapes who they believe they are, and who they’ll become.