We can make or break a child’s spirit by the words we use.
A child understands both tone and body language. These can send a message of acceptance, love and support or a message of rejection, hate and feeling unloved.
One message builds up a child while the other tears down a child.
A message of “I know whatever you put your mind to you will succeed, I am so proud of you. I love you so much” will direct a child to make choices in life to be happy, confident and successful.
They will attract people and relationships who love and respect them and they will do the same for others because they have grown up understanding their value and worth.
Messages of
“Get away from me! I wish I never had you!”
“You’re a failure! Can’t you do better!” “You’re just like your father/mother!” will send messages to a child they are not loved or valued; that they don’t matter.
They will be afraid to try while making choices in life that will stop them from reaching their potential.
They will also attract people and relationships who do not love and respect them. Potentially, these types of messages set up a child to fail in life unless the child recognizes these toxic messages are lies.
Soul-destroying messages can also cause an adolescent to try drugs, alcohol and smoking to feel included and accepted by their peers.
The problem here is once they start, they can become addicted and can move onto harder drugs to continually get that first high they experienced.
This is a form of self-medicating because of the internal war of self-loathing messages they experience.
What is important to a child is receiving the message of belonging.
Messages of love and acceptance send the message “You belong here.”
If you want your child to develop into a confident, happy, loving child who respects and values themselves and others, use words that build them up and encourage them instead of words and tones that tears them down.
If you would like to learn more to support your child, click on the link below for a booking today.
