Parents: Please watch your words

My clientele is mostly parents but I also work with people who aren’t parents or who come to me with issues not related to parenting; usually around their primary relationship.  The thing is, most of the time what these clients are challenged with are issues that go back to their childhood.  These are people well into adulthood who have been programmed with comments like:  “Why did you only get a B when you could have got an A?” or “Your sister can figure it out, why can’t you?” or “Why would you want to do that?  You’ll never make any money”.  When parents say these things their intention is to motivate their children to do better; to strive for something higher.  Do children see it that way?  No.  What they hear is “You don’t measure up” or “You’ll never amount to anything” or “Nothing you do impresses me”. 

Many of us have heard of what are called “limiting beliefs”.  These are beliefs about ourselves that are programmed and have been there most of our lives.  They’re often comments that someone made many years ago that stuck and we accepted them as fact.  Some of the beliefs are the exact words we heard and others are the interpretation of what we heard. 

What does all of this have to do with our primary relationship?  If we’ve been programmed to think little of ourselves or have a limiting belief, we project that on to the people who are most important to us. We all have triggers, and people close to us can easily activate those triggers with their words or actions that might remind us of a criticism we heard repeatedly when we were growing up.  What comes across as anger is actually fear of rejection or failure or some sort of emotional pain. 

If you’re a  parent remember your children are watching everything you do and internalizing everything you say about them.  Those words become part of who they become.  Think of the lasting effect of the comment:  “You messed up again” vs. “I believe in you!”.