Words Hurt !

Every time we speak – our children listen.  Our voice becomes that ‘inner voice’ that they hear when they are trying to make decisions or interact with others. 

Try to avoid labels at all costs.  Never label a child as ‘good’ or 'bad’ – but when faced with unsavoury behaviour try and stay neutral (esp. when they are having a tantrum!) and try to work out what the feelings are behind the actions or behaviour you are encountering.

One way to be a progressive parent is to realise your child’s behaviour is not happening ‘to you’.  See them as their own individual being with their own thoughts, feelings and experiences and work with them on a journey of navigation.  How we respond to them – their tantrums, their cries, their outbursts or anything we ‘don’t like’ will make all the difference to how they process the situation and how this will shape their behaviour in the future.

So, what do we do?  When we respond, we need to try to connect with our child in a way that reduces stress – for both the child and you!  We need to create a safe place for the child to process emotion and unpack their behaviour.  Their feelings are never ‘bad’, although sometimes their behaviour is not what you’d like.  We need to make sure we separate the behaviour from the root cause/emotion behind the behaviour and don’t try to control it or blame the child.  Children by nature want to be good so look beneath the surface and see the ‘bad’ behaviour as a cry for help.  Your job is to figure out what they need help with!  Sometimes it’s just wanting to feel connected to you, the parent.

Children will mirror what we do a lot more than what we say.  So, we can start by showing them how we want them to behave by modelling and behaving that way ourselves.   If your children are fighting with each other, a lovely expression to use is: ‘we are not a fighting family’.  So, you are not singling out any one child or behaviour – but you are emphasising team work and the family unit.  This type of unity can be used for many things e.g.: ‘we are a family that listens to each other’; ‘we are not a shouting family’ etc.

Check out this blog in 2 weeks’ time for some PRACTICAL TIPS on what we say and the damage it could do and how to change our words!

Our parent 'teaching moments'...

During childhood we, as parents or caregivers, teach our children what games to play and how to play them.  We may not even purposefully set out 'to teach', but almost every interaction we have with our child is a teaching moment.

When we do something that we consider routine (wake up in the morning and go straight to the bathroom to brush teeth) or ritual (saying goodnight in a certain way) we are cementing certain social positions and 'ways of being' in our family.  What this means is we reinforce how our family does things, why our family does things a certain way or when we do things.  This leads to our child (ren) understanding how our family unit functions.  These skills then get reinforced over the years by the way we react and interact with our children as they grow and develop.

As our child grows, his knowledge of and skill in these procedures, rituals and routines will help to determine what opportunities he will have available to him both in our family and beyond. His attitude towards these activities will determine what he will/will not make of these opportunities and what the outcomes will be.  So even when he is a 5-year-old battling to get dressed, he is learning how to achieve an outcome, what attitude is acceptable/unacceptable during this activity and how others respond to him.

We, parents or caregivers, often make choices (schools, holiday activities, opportunities for teaching) that reinforce our own routines, rituals or activities.  We look to expose our child to more situations that will reinforce our own teachings.  This is the way we build trust, cohesion and unity in our family unit - but remember that it is also your responsibility to teach your child about the larger social world he needs to navigate.  So model inclusion, tolerance, respect and diversity so that your child learns to be accepting of all, whilst feeling safe and secure in your own family unit.