Do You Know What Your Kids Believe?

Adam was three when he started having nightmares. He would dream that his older sister was attempting to kill their mother. Over and over he had this dream, each time waking up with a high-pitched scream that would wake the entire household and send his mother scurrying to his bedside. No matter how much she reassured him that all was well, his dream kept recurring. After many weeks of counseling with Adam and his family, the source of his dream was finally discovered: Adam had heard his mother say to his sister, on several occasions, “Sissy, you’ll be the death of me!” Being only three, neither his sense of humor nor his ability for abstract thinking, had developed enough for him to understand this statement in any other way than literally.

The adults in Adam’s life had been, like most of us would have, so caught up in their own experience of life that they remained unaware of how their statements affected the little guy. While we may have the best of intentions, or mean something we say as a joke, our words will be taken as gospel by the little ones; and difficult emotions that we may think we are hiding will be not only noticed and felt, but misunderstood by the little ones.

Joni was one such 5-year old. When her single Mom lost her job and started having financial difficulties, she made a point of not saying anything in front of the children. However, she worried a lot and would lie awake at night fretting. During the day she was tired and would easily drift off into her own anxiety-ridden thoughts. When Joni asked her what was wrong, she would smile and say ‘Nothing sweetie! Everything’s fine.” And turn away from her, back to her own fretting. But Joni felt that something was wrong. She became more and more serious, insecure and introverted, and the more Mom became wrapped up in her own worries, giving less and less attention to Joni, the more insecure Joni became. She was nervous and difficult to communicate with at school, and finally there was a melt-down when Mom was called in. The school counselor discovered that Joni thought her Mom didn’t love her anymore. The counselor explained to Mom that even if it wasn’t appropriate to share her worries with her five-year old, when Joni asked her what was wrong, she should let her know that she wasn’t feeling well or having to deal with grown-up problems that had nothing to do with Joni. This, at least would validate Joni’s feelings that Mom was unhappy – which were right! Telling Joni that she was wrong merely created another problem.

Particularly when there are crises – personal or societal, such as the many currently impacting our lives and our planet – children are often not only ignored or neglected, but have not been taught any skills to help them deal with either the crisis (which they usually don’t even understand) nor the adults’ negligence. Children, regardless of the actual intention of the adults, often experience what is merely a laxity as abandonment or hurtful neglect.

In an often-misguided attempt to protect the innocence of our young, we unintentionally also ‘protect’ them from the realities they need in order to understand their world, and that they so sorely need to handle the more unpleasant experiences of life.

Relatively recent studies have shown that the ability for managing stressful situations is more significant in determining health, success and happiness than any other single factor! This is due to the fact that emotions are stronger than logical thought, the emotional brain (the Limbic system) is more powerful than the ‘thinking brain’ (neo-cortex) and if we haven’t been taught to manage our emotions when stressful situations occur – whether it be in the form of a crisis or just day-to-day problems – no matter how sensible or logical our mind is, our emotions will take over our perception and, as a result, our behavior (as with Joni’s Mom).

Learning to manage our own emotions, as a proactive tool for handling stress and preventing regrettable behavior, is imperative in order to teach our children to do the same.

This begins with self-awareness – awareness of the thoughts, words and language we use in front of or even within the same house as our children (who have remarkably good hearing!) Here’s a list of suggested exclamations and statements to start you considering language that might be inappropriate.

“You’re driving me crazy!”

“You’ll never amount to anything!”

“If you don’t study hard you’ll fail!”

“What you don’t know won’t hurt you!”

“Suck it up!”

“Idiot!”

“She’s a pain in the butt.”

“Watch it or you’ll get run over!”

“I’m sick to death of you!”

“You just can’t win.”

“Bad things always happen in threes.”

“Why do bad things always happen to us?”

“You’re an accident waiting to happen!”

I'm sure you can create your own list :-) The good news is that once we start to become aware of our language (and out thinking), we can start to take charge and turn it all around so it matches what we actually WANT in our lives - and we can ensure that the beliefs we 'plant' in our children's minds are possibly more positive, functional and supportive than those that were given to us as kids! I know this has been my experience, and I am eternally grateful for the awareness that came to me when my daughter was young enough to benefit. What a blessing!