“Hey, wait a minute,” you may be thinking “Of course I love my children unconditionally!” 
I know I thought that – that is until my daughter went off the rails as a teenager in a dramatic way. The way back for our family was by learning to love unconditionally. We learned it the hard way and I don’t want that to happen to you. 
We discovered that although we thought we were a loving caring family, and certainly anyone who knew us would have agreed, our parenting was largely fearful making unconditional love virtually impossible. We had worries about our children’s futures, and expectations of what that should look like for each of them. We felt we needed to shape them into fine humans rather than simply to accept them as they are. The good news for us was that it was possible with a few simple techniques, to learn to love without fearand to become more effective parents as a result.  
You can do a quick assessment of how much fear versuslove there is in your own parenting style by taking the quiz below:

​There are shelves of books about the importance of a child’s self-esteem, but I want to point out a crucial difference between self-esteem and Inherent Worth. Our Inherent Worth is absolute. Our IW just is. It doesn’t depend on what we do or what we don’t do. It is non-negotiable - it just is. It is easy to see the truth of this when a baby is born. No one comes into the world any other way. We were all equally naked. It stands to reason then, that our worth is not established:

Perfectionists turn in homework written in perfect handwriting, no spelling mistakes and clearly hours have been spent in perfecting the product – no wonder parents and teachers love them! The problem is that perfectionism is usually driven by an underlying negative belief - that the perfectionist is worthless or unlovable. Perfectionism is an attempt to prove otherwise and gain the love and admiration that they feel is lacking.
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My daughter was a perfectionist in her last couple of years of elementary school and 

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in 15 to 34 year-olds and is three times more prevalent in boys than in girls. 
The root causes of mental health problems that can lead to suicide are established in early childhood. The good news is that there is a way to reverse the effects. The sooner you can start helping your child (and yourself) to fully understand that your worth is intrinsic the better.
Typically, suicide prevention strategies focus on awareness of depression and on