Be mindful of your words
As featured in Montana Parent Magazine
When you become a parent, you are thrust into a relationship with a person who constantly needs you and from whom you are not able to take much space. Add to this that one of the major jobs of parenthood is to provide guidance to ensure your child grows up in the best way possible and it’s no wonder that sometimes words can come out in harsh ways. This happens because we are not given much time to reflect on how this feedback is given. Later, we may feel bad that we spoke to our kids in this way, but in the moment there was no other option. Think phrases like “I don’t care what you have to say” and “you’re acting crazy” to describe one of your child’s behaviors. If you sometimes think that this critical voice is just what your child needs, ask yourself how that same voice in your head has helped you. Has it helped you to improve? Sometimes? OK. But it hurt you too! Is it necessary to be harshly critical of ourselves to learn from our mistakes? No! Let’s talk about how kids (really all people) can learn in a healthy way.
We all learn best by both recognizing what we’ve done that could be improved upon AND understanding why we did what we did in the first place. Is your critical brain telling you right now that you shouldn’t baby your kids? That if you do, they won’t be able to handle harsh words from others? This would be like preparing your kids to get burnt by the stove, by burning them on purpose. All this would do is show them that they shouldn’t trust you to keep them safe. And this is the same message they receive when we harshly criticize them too.
We can best prepare our kids for what they will face by giving them the feedback that they need to hear in constructive ways. This means identifying behaviors that are difficult or not socially appropriate by expressing how they make us feel. Things like “when you do that, I feel hurt,” or “when you act that way, I feel afraid that you might get hurt.” In addition to this expression of how our kids behaviors make us feel, we need to try to help them understand what they are feeling that leads them to their behaviors. Depending on where they are in their ability to understand and express their emotions, we may either ask them how they were feeling or offer our perspective of what we saw them feeling. There is no right or wrong in this process and the value here really lies in the exploration. Over time, they will get better at this. Our job is to instill this habit in them so that they can continue to develop it.
Being harsh with our kids teaches them to be harsh with themselves and keeps them from understanding the motivation of their behaviors and how they affect others. For most of us, this is what we were taught to do. Kids learn in a much better way from their mistakes when we offer them constructive information about the motivation for and effect of their behaviors. Harshly critical voices are ultimately more harmful than they are helpful. They hurt and create fear of failure. Our kids deserve better and we deserve better ourselves.