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Hearing is Believing: How words can make or break our kids / Introduction INTRODUCTION copyright Elisa Medhus, M.D. I’ve always taken pride (whether I deserved the credit or not) in being the kind a person who gets things done. Ms. Efficiency. Ms. A to B. Ms. Freight Train (don’t linger on my tracks unless you’re looking for a new decorative look for your back.) Sure, being a human tornado works well in many settings, but it wreaks havoc in others. First, it doesn’t mesh with other facets of my personality such as the compassion I feel for my patients. After all, what would be the fun in waltzing into an exam room, thrusting a nasty tasting wooden stick into a patient’s mouth and, after perfunctorily peering into that abyss with a penlight, announcing: “You’ve got tonsillitis. Take these pills and see me in a week,” only to exit without another word? Well, the patient sure wouldn’t look back on our encounter as a barrel of laughs or a warm and fuzzy experience. Not only would she never return (except, perhaps to get her money back or to give me a good tongue lashing,) I seriously doubt if she’d take a single one of those pills. As for me—medicine would be nothing more than tedious and unfulfilling assembly line work. Because I’m so fond of people, I’ve always enjoyed spending time with each patient, not only to listen to their problems and explain my thoughts and advice, but to get to know them as human beings with their own personal stories, families, worries, and dreams. Connecting with my patients this way made practicing medicine an immensely rewarding experience for me, and nurturing that doctor-patient relationship helped me develop a loyal following of patients who consistently took my suggestions and treatment plans seriously. In short, it became a healing experience on both sides. But once I crossed the threshold at home, Ms. Jeckyl took over of Dr. Hyde. One kid is busying himself by plastering panty liners all over the toilet seats to keep all the Medhus bottoms warm. My response: “What do you think you’re doing? Do you know how hard that’s going to be to take off? Go to your room, right now!” Another kid is tracking so much mud on the kitchen floor, you’d think he just plowed the back forty. How did I handle that one?: “Stop making a mess! I’m sick and tired of telling you to take your shoes off before you come inside!” A third kid is threatening to feed his little sister’s Barbie Doll to our seventy-pound and perpetually starving Weimaraner. What did I say to him?: “If you so much as let Zoe breathe on that doll, you’re grounded for a year, young man.” By now, the first kid is wailing so loud upstairs, I fear for my fine crystal. I holler up to him: “Don’t you make me come up there or I’ll give you a real reason to cry!” The youngest is now thoroughly engrossed (couldn’t ask for a better word) in one of her most favorite tasks: blissfully digging a juicy booger out of her nose. I skid like a human hockey puck (little did I know that the kids sprayed Pledge all over the floor so they could slide around in socks,) to rescue the coffee table from an imminent booger veneer screaming, “Quit picking your nose. That’s disgusting.” Yep, it goes on and on. Eventually everyone is in tears, my nerves are frayed to the point that the little muscles around my crow’s feet are twitching uncontrollably and I really haven’t accomplished anything constructive. With the “Beauty bath take me away” Calgon commercial endlessly repeating itself in the back of my mind, I resign myself to a long bubble bath to contemplate what had just happened. After a few minutes of soaking and unwinding, I began to ask myself—why do I treat adults so differently than my own children? What puzzled me even more was that I do so despite the obvious: it never really does any good. I knew I wasn’t alone out there. As I slowly turned into a big white prune, ignoring the knocks on my door, the fingers wiggling under it and the whimpers and snivelings in the background, I thought about my neighbors, my friends, strangers in the grocery line with a cart full of toddlers—they all talk to their kids the same way. At that moment somewhere between my shampoo and crème rinse, I had my epiphany: Throughout history, generation after generation of parents have been communicating with their children in a way that they would dare not do with other adults. Other than destroying any hopes of having a peaceful Ozzie and Harriet type family, and other than being a highly ineffective way of encouraging obedience, I started to wonder what effects this legacy of parenting language had. Could it have given birth to many of the troubles we see in today’s youth culture? That said, could it have been instrumental in shaping our society into its current form? All this miraculous revelation in the company of disgusting soap scum! Once I toweled the bubbles from my body, scraped the panty liners from the toilet seats, mopped the mud from the floors, soothed my five children and kissed away their tears, I embarked on a mission—a mission to see if there truly is a link between how we speak to children and the shape of the world they live in. After hundreds of interviews with parents and kids as well as my own personal experiences and ruminations, it became clear that what we say to our kids plays a pivotal role in whether or not they grow to be moral, responsible adults. In the pages that follow, I will explain how, for centuries, parents and other adults have been programmed to make two types of mistakes when they interact with children. The first mistake: some of the remarks we say to them encourage approval seeking. And although it might sound hunky dory to have a child who will do anything short of throwing rose petals in order to win our approval, that same kid will be seeking someone else’s approval later on—perhaps someone who doesn’t have his best interests at heart like we do. Perhaps someone who doesn’t share the same principles and values. The second mistake: Some of the remarks we make hinder the development of our kids’ reasoning abilities. Some prevent them from thinking objectively. Some make it impossible for them to think clearly. And some make it tough to think at all! When our children don’t develop healthy reasoning skills, they learn to rely on others to think for them. Unfortunately, this leaves them vulnerable to all outside influences—positive or negative. And since negative influences often speak to their urges and temptations rather than their morals and values, children who cannot think clearly are often led astray by peer, media and pop culture choices that are irresponsible, immoral, and perhaps even life threatening. You may argue that there are plenty of children today who behave responsibly and obediently. But is this a reflection of wanting to please adults and other authority figures? Is this their means of avoiding punishment or reprimand? Would those same children behave that way if no one were watching? The sad truth is that many children make a majority of their moral choices contingent upon their own needs and welfare. In other words, they will do the right thing only because there’s something in it for them, because everyone else is doing it or because they think they might get caught if they don’t. Clear reasoning is essential to making responsible choices that withstand the lure, the pervasiveness and the tenacity of terms set by outside influences and inner urges. These—responsible choices impervious to conditions—are the key to being decent, happy, and whole. As you read, you may be surprised, even shocked (if parents with a couple of years under their belt can be shocked by anything!) by some of the remarks I list as harmful. You might think, ‘I say that all the time, and it doesn’t seem to cause any problem. I mean, my kid’s not wearing black lipstick and a purple Mohawk. He’s not failing school or torturing small animals. He seems perfectly fine, between the tantrums and lying, the demands and the whining. What could be so wrong?’ But as you read on, you will see just how each remark alters, distorts and even obstructs a specific part of your children’s choice-making process. Since eliminating these phrases will leave many of you with big holes in your parenting vocabulary and filling those holes with Swahili or Portuguese might not interest you, I will suggest a variety of healthier alternatives— remarks that encourage your children to think clearly and rationally so that they can make responsible choices for their entire life. This goes a step beyond what we can do to help our children choose wisely. Think about it for a moment. Responsible choices are the individual fibers weaving the moral fabric within a society. It goes without saying that any words that discourage, block or weaken the reasoning skills of today’s youth are irrefutable accomplices in our society’s mounting moral bankruptcy. In fact, I believe this parenting dialect we have regrettably inherited represents the root cause of all the problems we face today in our children, our families, our schools, our community and society as a whole. Once this connection is fully exposed and understood, we can shed that legacy of harmful words and replace it with another—a legacy of words that can guide all children to become moral, responsible adults and, as a result, hoist our society back up to its feet. These are the words that will blaze a path to a better future. |
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