This Year, Videos for Valentine’s Day

How do we tell a son or a daughter about love? Would they listen? Would they believe us? Right.

So what can we do to make our points--to get across the messages that may be missed in sex education classes or not covered in girls’ room chatter or boys’ locker room bragging.

I’ll go with a video or two. The screen speaks to most kids, so we may as well employ the medium that has the best chance of conveying the messages we want to share. The hard part is picking the films to do the job.

I’m not suggesting a Top 20 ranking or a pious best-ever compendium. The list does not have to be top-heavy with Oscar winners or be laced with films that populate pretentious film courses. The list must be a personal one, not that of a reviewer or an industry group or a religious movement or the product of a market survey.

This Valentine’s Day, I’ll suggest to my 12-year-old son that we watch “Marty” (thirtysomethings living in New York City’s outer boroughs) or “Some Kind of Wonderful” (other-side-of-town teens at a California high school). More than likely we’ll go with my son’s favorite, “‘Good Will Hunting,” which he likes because of the buddy-talk, the put-ons, the pranks and the goofing around that set off Will’s genius exploits.

As we watch the film for the sixth or seventh time, I hope that some of the advice offered by the psychologist from South Boston (Sean McGuire, played by Robin Williams) will register with my son. Sean (wearing a print shirt out of Goodwill, an old cardigan and an Army fatigue cap) has Will sit with him on a park bench. As a man of books, Sean has standing to observe that there are some things Will (the cocky genius) can’t derive from all the books he’s read: “You can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.”

How do we describe or depict intimacy? Do we sit our kids down and talk to them about being there for someone, about having someone be there for them, about fear of rejection and abandonment, about vulnerability and about “real loss?”

Eventually, when my son has a girlfriend, I want him to be able to befriend her and to confide in her. I want him to find someone who likes him as he is; someone who gets to know him and appreciates him, who discovers and accepts him; someone who doesn’t long for things (mounds of money and drop-dead good looks) that distance movie stars, rocks stars and other idols from the rest of us. I want him to have a relationship that builds confidence.

In “Good Will Hunting,” Sean tells Will that it’s the little things--the idiosyncrasies, flaws, imperfections--that make someone special and dear. Sean notes that his late wife, whom he still loves dearly, “had the goods” on him too. He goes on to observe, “You’re not perfect, and let me save you the suspense, this girl you’ve met, she’s not perfect either. The question is whether you’re perfect for each other . . . .”

I will surely speak to my son about disappointments, “bad times” and heartache. I will speak about regrets and trying to conduct one’s self so as not to have too many regrets. I’ll speak to him about “take-backs”--not saying or doing things that he might want to take back. And I’ll try to anticipate one of life’s key questions: How did you know that she’s the one?

The film’s answer: “She was a stunner . . . she lit up the room.” And you’d miss the sixth game of the 1975 World Series (and Carlton Fisk’s 12th-inning home run) just to meet her.

OK, I’m not a Red Sox fan, so maybe my priorities are skewed. And I’m not sure it makes sense to try to define “a stunner.” But when my son sees (as I hope he will) a girl who lights up a room, I hope he takes the film’s advice and “goes for it.”

I can tell him all this, with conviction. To make the picture really clear, however, it may take a film that he really likes.