Two Wrongs Don't Make It Right

When people make a negative statement about themselves they are looking for understanding…not correction.

Yet how often when we hear our kids say, “I’m stupid,” or “Nobody likes me,” do we correct? Unfortunately most of us have a built in response when we hear a statement like that and can’t help but want to fix it. Our kids are so precious to us and the thought that they might actually believe that statement breaks our heart.

People make these kinds of statements because they are hurting, testing, repeating what they see their role models do or trying to express something they don’t know how else to express. If we can respond with something calm and supportive, we are opening the door to safe communication.

We are not ignoring the comment, but we aren’t reacting to it either. If your child likes hugs, you might ask him, “Do you need a hug?” If he looks quite upset, but not open to a hug you might try an inquiry, “Has something happened to make you feel this way?” Sometimes all it takes is a quizzical look for them to tell us more.

When statements like this are made our child needs us, but not in the way we might think. By allowing our kids to feel whatever negative feeling is shooting through him at the moment without turning it into a further correction, we are opening the door to the real story or feeling being released.

It will never be easy to listen to our kids talk this way, but if we can use the opportunity to really hear them their self-esteem will grow as a result. If not and your child seems to be making a habit of these kinds of statements, look carefully at what is being modeled for him and/or try a gentle correction like, “You happen to be talking about someone I think is pretty incredible…care to explain yourself?”

Just Do It!

Personal development is something we do for ourselves that benefits so many others. Kids learn more from what we do than what we say.

It seems strange that the best way to help our kids grow into great people is to focus on growing into great people ourselves, yet it is absolutely true. The way we behave, how we take care of ourselves and how we treat other people will influence our children more than anything we “tell” them to do.

When we push ourselves out of our comfort zone and force ourselves to grow beyond our current knowledge and abilities, we are role modeling for our kids the very behaviour we would like them to adopt. Their issues and areas of growth might not be the same, but the message is still picked up.

When Nike came up with the slogan “Just Do It!” they were describing far more than most of us imagined.

A new understanding...

Recently I had a situation occur in my life that left me taking stock of what’s really important and how I can change my life to really reflect those findings. I’ve been healing for two and a half weeks and while I’m not finished yet I have had several major, a-ha, moments. One of them was in regards to my blog.

As a parent, with a million things on my plate I find writing on a regular basis to be a real challenge. As a result, I write an article for ezine, post it to my blogs, add it to my facebook fanpage and say I am done. The problem is these articles are longer, take time to develop and are first to get dropped when other work related situations arise.

On the other hand, I make myself go daily (sometimes even a few times a day) to update my status on my social media outlets. It dawned on me that rarely do I write a status and not struggle with keeping it so short. So few characters leaves lots of room for misinterpretation and does not allow for examples. As a result, I decided to change the way I am blogging. I am going to use the status updates as my launching pad for a brief yet more informative blog and try to do so daily (except weekends of course).

I will still write longer articles for ezine and include them on my blog, but those can be like bonus pieces added in one or two times per month. Eureka! Perhaps I finally understand blogging.

Until next time…