No Matter How Difficult A Child Is, Never Stop Talking Nice To Him

I know that sometimes we are very tired, crammed with information, problems and responsibilities. All our frustration ends up turning into frowns and words that we throw towards those we love the most. Many of these people are young children, children who do not understand the reason for our anger. We change “talking nice” to harsh words, full of unnecessary adjectives that refer cruelly to “what they always do” or “what they are.”

How many parents do we observe throwing words like “you’re stupid”, “behave yourself” and even “idiot” at their children? Whoever sees this from the outside finds this immature attitude surprising. However, you have to see yourself in the shoes of that parent who no longer knows how to deal with such a high level of demand. Perhaps, at some point, we have proceeded in the same way.

However, you always have to make an effort. Children are not to blame and they do not deserve to be unfairly unburdened to them. More than anything because they are taking their first steps in life and what we do today will be for them a positive or negative message that they will always keep in their hearts.

Talking nice to him will be better than a cake

A cake, a shout, a punishment will always seem more effective than talking nice to children. This is so because the results of the former are immediate, but include perverse side effects. They cannot defend themselves from the onslaught, they will feel humiliated and even savor, for the first time, what they will one day discover is called resentment.

Talking nice to children may seem, at first, that it will not work, that we will not get them to know that it is wrong with a bad action. However, this is not so. Communication will always be the most important thing. The little ones, believe it or not, understand more than we think.

If we explain to them what they have done wrong, how they should have proceeded and end with a hug, we will convey the valuable lesson that mistakes are human and that the important thing is to learn from them. We send them a clear message: “next time you will do better, I trust you.”

Tenderness, love, compassion and comfort will be engraved in the depths of that little person we love so much and who still has a lot to learn. That message we are trying to convey to you will mature over time. We may not see it now, as this is not as instantaneous as a slap. But in the long term we will see its great results. In addition, we will see how our children educate their children in the same way and we will be proud of them.

Do we want our children to be afraid of us? Do we seek to instill respect out of fear? This is not the learning style that we have to convey. A negative word or an insult can cause insecurity, low self-esteem, unnecessary fear… I know we are very busy, but we have brought a little person into the world who deserves all our attention, all our love and all our good deeds.

The power of affective discipline

Aggression will encourage more aggressiveness  and more behaviors that we don’t want. For example, if our child does not understand our screams, he will learn not to listen to us. But, if we practice affective discipline, where there are subtle and delicate calls for attention, the results will be much better. However, this is difficult to do when our own parents acted in the way we are examining. If we realize it, we will repeat the same pattern of behavior.

Acting in the same way that our parents did is something that many times we do not want. But, maybe this happens because we don’t stop to analyze how we are treating our children. It is important to reflect on it. Perhaps we are nostalgic for not having received all the love that our parents could give us. Perhaps they did not know how to demonstrate it in the proper way.

It is normal. No parent has an instruction manual that tells them how best to proceed. However, despite this, it is very important that we attend to everything that our son experiences in childhood. Well, talking nice to him will affect him in one way and pay our frustrations with him in another.

Everything that happens in childhood strongly marks us in later stages. Children are born ready for love. Let’s get to know them, take care of them and look for that point where we will capture their attention to be able to teach and guide them in the correct way. Of course, this has to be done from love, not from fear. Talking nice to children will be a great decision.

Images courtesy of Käthe Kollwitz, Claudia Tremblay, Soosh