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| |    Valentine's Day: The Ps & Qs of Valentines for Children by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. reviewed by Laura Jana, M.D., F.A.A.P. • Younger children should give valentines to all classmates or members of a group or to none at all (in fact, many schools have rules about this). Use this opportunity to help children understand feelings. Up until the age of four or five years, most children have difficulty seeing a situation from another person's point of view. They won't easily understand a hypothetical question like "How would you feel if everyone else got cards, but you didn't?" It's best to state a simple rule, such as "We always give cards to everyone in the class, so no one feels left out." By first grade, many children are more sophisticated in their thinking, and it's possible to ask them questions like "How would you feel if you didn't get a card from a kid you really liked?" or "What if you got a lot fewer cards than other kids?" A thoughtful child might then decide on her own to make cards for all the children in the class. • As children enter the later elementary school years, they may want to be more selective about whom they give valentines to. If they are not giving valentines to all their classmates, they should mail them to their friends' homes, not pass them out at school when the children who are excluded might see them and feel hurt. You also can use Valentine's Day to help your child develop her sense of empathy and kindness. Children this age usually are keenly aware of the relative social standing of every child in their classes. One is "popular," another is "weird" or "no one likes him." You can simply ask, "Who do you think will get a lot of valentines? Are there any kids who won't? Why not?" You might suggest that your child include the less popular kids on her valentine-mailing list and encourage her friends to do so as well. Besides reminding your child to be kind, you'll learn a lot about how she sees her peers, and herself. • By the time they enter their preteens, children are pretty much in charge of their Valentine's Day activities. The holiday can bring into focus the very wide differences in maturity between students in the same class. Some already will be interested in romantic friendships, if not actual dating, while others still consider the idea of kissing "yucky" or just silly. Peer groups and the media have something to do with children's approaches to romance, but a lot of the differences between individuals arise from differences in biology, with puberty starting as early as 8 or 9 in some girls, and as late as 14 or 15 in some boys. Preteens and teens need to be able to make choices for themselves about such things as Valentine's Day, but they appreciate a parent who can listen to their ideas, and give supportive (but not necessarily uncritical) feedback.
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