Never Stop Talking to a Child with Care
I know that sometimes we’re really tired, overloaded with information, problems and responsibilities. All of our frustration ends up turning into frowns and words that we throw at the ones we love most. Many of these people are small children, kids who don’t understand the reason behind our anger. We trade in the usual way we speak to them with care for harsh words, full of unnecessary adjectives which cruelly refer to things “they always do” or “what they are”.
How many parents have we seen tell their children “you are dumb”, “behave yourself” or even “you are just an idiot”? Anyone who sees this from the outside will find this immature attitude really surprising. However, you have to step into this parent’s shoes, a person who doesn’t know how to deal with such a high level of demands. Maybe, at some point, we may have acted in the same manner.
Nevertheless, you always have to put in the effort. Children aren’t to blame, and they don’t deserve to have us take it out on them so unfairly. More than anything because they are taking their first steps in life. If we behave like this towards them today, we’ll be sending them a positive or negative message which will forever stay in their hearts.
Oftentimes, it’s not the child who is going through “a tough time”. Instead, it’s the parents who feel overwhelmed and do not know how to deal with the pressure.
Speaking to a child with care will be more effective than scolding them
A scold, a yell, a punishment will always be more effective than speaking to your children with care. This is because the results will be more immediate, but they provoke some pretty perverse side effects. They cannot defend themselves from the onslaught. They will feel humiliated and will even get a taste, for the first time in their lives, of something what they will one day discover is called resentment.
Furthermore, a child will tend to imitate. They will think that if someone stronger than them can use violence to direct their actions, they will also be able use it on people smaller than them.
Speaking to children with care can seem, at first glance, like it won’t work. It might seem that we won’t get them to understand that they have behaved badly. However, that’s simply not true. Communication will always be the most important factor. These youngsters, though we might find it hard to believe, understand a lot more than we think.
How to get the message across correctly..
If we explain what they have done wrong, how they should have proceeded and end it all with a hug, we will transmit the valuable lesson that making mistakes is human and that the important thing is to learn from them. We will have sent them a clear message: “You’ll do better next time. I trust you.”
Tenderness, love, compassion and consolation will be recorded in the deepest part of that little human we love so dearly. That little person who still has so much left to learn. That message which we try to transmit will mature over time. It’s possible that we cannot see it now, since this is not as immediate as a slap on the behind. But, in the long term, we will contemplate its wonderful results. Also, we will see how our children will educate their own children in the same way. And this is definitely something to be proud of.
Speaking to a child with care will set them down a path where love, listening and comprehension will always be present.
Do we want our child to fear us? Do we seek to infuse respect with fear? This is not the style of learning we have to transmit. A negative word or insult can cause insecurity, low self-esteem, unnecessary fears… I know that we’re very busy beings, but we have brought this little child into the world. They deserve all of our attention, all of our love and all of our good deeds.
The power of affectionate discipline
Aggression will only promote more aggression and more behaviors we do not want. For example, if your child doesn’t understand your yelling, they will learn to not listen to it. But, if we put affectionate discipline into action, where subtle and delicate calls to attention are used, the results will be much better. However, it’s difficult to carry this out when our own parents behaved the way we’re referring to. If we realize it, we often repeat their same pattern of behavior.
Behaving the same way our own parents did is something we many times do not want. But, it might happen because we don’t take a second to stop and analyze how we are treating our children. It’s important to reflect upon it. We might feel nostalgic, because we never received all of the caring that our parents could give us. Maybe they didn’t know how to show it appropriately.
No one is perfect..
It’s normal. No parent has a an instruction manual that indicates the best way to procede. However, despite this fact, it is very important that we attend to everything our children experience during childhood. Speaking to them with care will affect them a certain way and taking out our frustrations on them will affect them in a very different way.
Although your strength may at times fail, no matter how much everything around you is negative, don’t ever get tired of speaking to your child with care.
Everything that takes place during childhood leaves a powerful mark on the following stages of a life. Children are born with the will to love. Let’s get to know them, attend to their needs and seek out that point in which we will catch their attention in order to teach and guide them correctly. That being said, this has to happen from a place of love, not from fear. Speaking to children with care will be a great decision.
