Inside your child’s mind is a secret garden; tending it with love is the key that opens it. 

I recently re-read my favourite classic children’s story, The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The tale follows Mary, a neglected and spoiled young girl who returns to England from British-occupied India after her parents die of cholera. Now an orphan, she is sent to live at her uncle’s estate in Yorkshire, England. She discovers she has a cousin, Colin, who lost his mother the day he was born, and who is ill and bedridden.

The absence of parental love shapes both children. As a result, they are malnourished, difficult, and withdrawn due to the emotional neglect they’ve experienced.

Martha, the maid, is the first to show Mary genuine love. She speaks warmly about her own family and has her brother Dickon buy her garden tools as a gesture of kindness. Mary is thrilled, and when she meets Dickon, she immediately sees that he has a deep love for nature and animals.

 Colin adores hearing Mary’s stories about the secret garden, and when she takes him there, something magical happens to his health. As the story unfolds, Mary and Colin begin to feel the magic of what love can create as they tend a neglected garden and watch it spring back to life.

In my early days of parenting, when my son displayed undesirable behaviours, my first instinct was to look outside myself for a solution. I didn’t think to reflect on how my parenting style, stress, or emotional state contributed to the problem.

I now understand that simply making the time to listen without judgment and worry is the “tending the garden” solution. The Secret Garden’s message is that healing begins when you tend to the problem with love, patience, and presence.

We don’t always see how our behaviour can show the opposite of love, and children see more than they hear.

The action of love is the force that keeps us connected and secure, and every worry, thought, or word you project onto your child is absorbed. As Burnett writes, “Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow” (The Secret Garden, p. 339).

Does the act of love create a strong connection with your children? Yes! As in the story, Mary and Colin healed physically and emotionally the moment they brought that garden to life with their attention and love, just as Martha and Dickon had shown them.