I'm always giving you parenting advice.
Today, 10 things you should never say to your child.
We've talked a lot on this channel about things you should do or try or say to your kids.
Today's a little different.
I found an article online from Parenting Magazine, this article is written by Michelle Crouch,
from Parents' Magazine.
I'll put a link in the description down below if you want to go look at the article.
10 things you should never say to your kids.
This was an interesting article and as a psychologist, it caught my attention.
Now hopefully, you're already aware of the obvious ones, okay.
Like saying "Oh, she's the cute one."
Oh really?
Be careful with that one, right.
Or "He's the smart one."
or "she's the athletic one."
Putting these labels on our kids doesn't help.
Just wait til your father gets home.
Remember that one?
Yeah, not particularly helpful.
Or "Why can't you be more like your brother?"
These are the obvious.
We're not going to go there today.
This particular article triggered some thinking for me and I wanted to share with you a few
psychological insights into what the article mentions.
So the first one is, "Great job!"
Wait, what?
You're not supposed to say that to our kids?
We all say that, right?
There's a good point behind this.
We don't want to create a scenario where out children are dependent on our own approval
or affirmation for what it is that they are doing and there's nothing wrong with saying
"Great job" to your kid.
What if you were to be a little more specific?
So when your child comes home from school ad has a good grade on their report card.
Great job!
As opposed to something like, instead try "I noticed that you got an A in English, how
do you feel about that?"
So we're turning it back to them, inviting them to explore their feelings about their
performances instead of just declaring something about it.
So it's not something that's completely destructive, none of these are really but there are little
subtle things that I think are helpful to look at.
Here's the second one.
"Practice makes perfect."
You ever heard that from your parents when you were learning how to play the piano or
learning a new skill?
Now that's a common phrase, not particularly helpful to say to our kids.
Why?
Because they're already working hard on things and they never get it perfect, do they?
Do you?
Does practice really make perfect?
You know, it's probably more accurate to say practice makes more permanent because whatever
we practice we get better at but it's not necessarily adaptive.
You could practice being in a negative mood for example and you're going to get better
in a negative mood so instead, what if we were just talking to our kids in a way that
affirms their efforts and helps them to understand the more I work on something, the better I'm
likely to get at it.
And let's just leave the perfection standard out of it.
I think that's the thing that spoils it.
Let's look at another one.
"You're okay."
Almost in an anxious way.
You know, sometimes if your kid stumbles and gets in their knee or falls down and they're
crying, it's our natural tendency as parent to comfort them, right?
And there's nothing wrong with that but telling them you're okay, sometimes triggers a little
thought process in our kid's mind that "Oh, well shouldn't I be?
Is there some reason why you're settled?"
You know what, I saw this most flagrantly when I was doing child custody evaluations
and I kid you not, I saw an exchange where the mother in this case was sending the child
to go over to the father's house for a weekend I think it was, may have only been an evening.
But as she was preparing the child to leave, she kept saying "You're okay.
You're going to be okay.
It's going to be alright.
You're going to be safe."
The kid is going nuts because of mom's anxiety.
Do you see this?
So instead of saying you're okay, notice that when your child is hurt, yeah, of course,
they're okay, you know that but throwing that in their face right in the moment probably
isn't the most helpful thing.
What if you were to just comfort them and show some empathy?
Where as you're holding them and say, "Oh, you skinned your knee, that hurts, doesn't
it?"
Yeah, it hurts.
Of course it hurts.
So again, not a really destructive word we say, it's something that we commonly do.
Just think about some of the implications.
Let's go to the next one.
Number four, "Hurry up."
Alright, this is kind of obvious because of the pressure that it creates.
What if instead you were to join your child in the process of getting ready to go somewhere?
Let's just hurry.
You see how that feels a little bit different?
And we're going to phrase it in a positive way.
Here's number five.
"I'm on a diet."
Okay, parents sometimes allow their own issues to bubble over and affect their children that
don't even realize that they're doing it.
If mom or dad is so self conscious about their appearance or their weight or whatever they're
constantly "Oh, this dress makes me look fat." or "I just can't okay basketball like I used
to because I'm so overweight." or "I'm on a diet."
Alright, the child tunes into that and they notice it.
Again, let's phrase this in terms of what it is that we want and bring out the positive
aspects of it, something like "Let's eat healthy so that we'll have energy and we'll feel good."
Okay?
You can address the same things without bringing your own pathology into it.
That stings a little sometimes.
Let's go on to number six.
"We can't afford that."
Now, I'm a big advocate for teaching kids about finances and how to live within their
means.
When we say we can't afford that and it's something that the child wants, it creates
a whole different feel for that child than if you were to say "You know what, sweetie,
that would be a really neat thing to get and we are saving up right now for this other
thing that we really want."
Maybe it's a family vacation, maybe it's groceries, right?
It can be that basic sometimes.
But instead, redirecting them from "Oh, you can't have that because we can't afford it."
to "We're saving our money for this thing."
Which teaches a real principle.
You can't spend it on this and that and that's going to help them some things about finance
but here's an even more powerful way.
What if we were to change "We can't afford it.
We can't do it.
We don't have time for it."
to "How could we afford that?"
Imagine yourself having that conversation with your teenager for example.
Well, that looks really interesting.
How do you think we could afford that?
Now we're inviting the mind to do a little thinking, right?
Instead of just resisting.
Let's go to the next one.
Number seven, "Don't talk to strangers."
Alright, that's some clear rationality behind this, because we want to keep our kids safe.
What if instead we were to help them to be more discerning about who to talk to?
Okay, what if your child gets lost sometime and you're not around or anyone else they
know, that means everyone is a stranger.
If they've got it in their mind don't talk to strangers, then they're on their own, aren't
they?
What if we were to teach them to look for a grandma or mother with children or look
for a store person that's wearing the uniform or for a first responder, you know, a police.
There are people in our community that can be helpful and if we teach our children to
be more discerning, we might be able to lead them into better direction instead of just
don't talk to strangers.
Here's number eight, "Be careful."
Now what is this about typically?
Typically it's about the anxiety of the parent.
The example in the article had to do with being on the monkey bars in the playground.
The child's up there and they're doing some acrobatic routine, right?
And mom is nervous and so mom's like "Oh, honey.
Be careful."
Well, okay.
That might distract the child and get their focus off of what it is they're doing.
The suggestion in the article I thought was brilliant.
Go over closer to the child and spot them in case there's an incident and then after
the fact, you might talk about how to use discretion in judgement after the activities
that they choose.
I thought that was an interesting one.
Here's another one.
"No dessert unless you finish your dinner."
This falls into a category for me about positivity and negativity which will totally surprise
you, guys.
Cause I'm a positivity shrink right?
What if instead of saying "No dessert" we say "You can have dessert after your dinner's
finished."
or "We all eat dessert once dinner is finished."
okay, see, frame it in a positive way just makes all the difference.
Here's one more from the article.
"Let me help."
Alright, now as well as intention as that is, a lot of times our kids are working on
something that they don't have the same level of skill and dexterity that we do so they're
stacking something up for example or they're doing a puzzle and we want to jump in "Well,
let me help you with that."
Just before they were about to get it.
Give them some time, let them develop their skills and back off sometimes.
It was interesting to go through this list and see some of the things that they're saying
that you should never say to your kids but cause they're things that we always say, right?
A little bit of thought about adjustments, minor adjustments and along those lines, you
know, if you're flying an airplane for example and you get just one degree off, just one
degree off course, after 500 miles, you're way off course so you make a course correction
and that's what we're talking about here.
These are not way off, these things that I read to you today, things to never say to
your kids.
Well, what if we make little course corrections in the things that we commonly say to our
kids.
Could that create some better outcomes?
I think it might.
Did that list surprise you too?
It did me.
Subtle adjustments, course corrections can make a huge difference, I'll see you tomorrow.