Simply Mother

The Quote: “We must be so careful in speaking to a child. What we say or don’t say, how we say it and when is so very, very important in shaping a child’s view of himself or herself. But it is even more important in shaping that child’s faith in us and their faith in God. Be constructive in your comments to a child—always.”

The Reference: The Tongue of Angels by Jeffrey R. Holland (May, 2007, Ensign) Click the link, the whole article is wonderful.

The Story: I read this in an Ensign article Sunday morning and thought, I love that. I should put that on my blog, and then promptly forgot about it and went about getting ready for church.

Later that day, I was so NOT careful in talking to my child, instantly felt terrible, and suddenly recalled the quote. How true it is, and how hard to do sometimes. But I realized what it is that gets me to the point of such frustration that I’m willing to abandon all my beliefs about how children need to be treated, and respond harshly.

It happens when I’m trying to talk to my child about something and, for whatever reason, she is not able to listen to me at the moment. It could be age/maturity, it could be the moment–too close to the time of the incident, or probably just a mixture of the two.

So we have me patiently trying to explain something (Jade, Jade, here’s why we don’t bite big sister on the nose), and my three-year-old seemingly completely oblivious to that fact, actively trying to get me to move on to other things (Mom, Mom, how many fingers do I have?)

I think I’m the kind of person who can’t just learn something once, or even 20 times, because I figured this out already with Sarah and now I’m already forgetting with Jade:

Sometimes kids just can’t hear what we have to say, and we would do best to take their very obvious signals to that fact, and move on ourselves, rather than trying to drive in a point. Because if they’re not ready to listen to it, they’re not going to be able to understand it or get anything of value out of it anyway, even if we could find a way to pound it in to their heads.

It’s amazing to me that I still forget this sometimes, that I continue to try to get them to listen or require “talking about it” even though it is clearly not going to be effective, because I’ve had many, many good experiences with waiting for a while–moving on after making sure everyone’s okay, and not addressing the “behavior” right away, and then coming back to it later and talking about it. It’s worked really well, especially with Sarah (who, at almost 6, is finally at the point where she CAN hear me address it right away without completely shutting down, although not always, depends on how heated she is), but it’s even worked with Jade for about a year.

I just have to let it go for a few minutes, let her have some space or move on and do something else or whatever she needs to do to get clear of all that negative energy, and then later we can have a really productive conversation. “How were you feeling when you did that? How do you think your sister felt? I can’t let you do that because it’s not safe. What could you do next time you’re feeling that way?”

These type of conversations are nearly impossible right after the incident, but really productive and empowering for my children (I say solely based on my observations of their attitude and subsequent actions) and conducive to harmonious relationships if I do it later when things have calmed down and everyone’s in a better mood.

It is only when I don’t heed my own advice, and continue to try to get a response out of a non-responsive child, that I get angry and resort to using less-than-carefully chosen words and tones with my delicate little children.

Filed in: child development • parenting • spiritual | July 13, 2009