A friend of mine told me about a time her daughter cut her foot. Mother exclaims, "Are you ok?!" Her wise daughter said, "Why do people always ask that? Wouldn't it be more to the point to ask if there's any way you can help?"
Recently I saw a young boy who I hadn't seen in awhile. Since I have been thinking about words and phrases a lot lately, I hesitated before asking him how old he was. I realized what I really wanted to know and asked the question directly, "How many years do you have?" He understood immediately and held up four fingers.
When I was two, I spent time in the hospital in a serious condition. Whenever my parents asked the doctor how I was, he would say, "She's still pretty bad." They asked when I could come home and he said, "Not until she's much better." I heard his words so strongly that I wouldn't ask for water or a blanket if I needed them, because I was trying so hard to be better.
Childhood is a place where words are literal. Children pay the consequences when adults forget that. I encourage parents, especially of children under five years of age, to consider the language they used when stating the "rules" and to evaluate whether discipline is truly in order.
For a three year old, "outside" the front door is a whole different world than "outside" the back door. Is it fair to yell at a child for breaking the rules laid down in one world when they are in the other world? If this doesn't make sense to you, think how confusing it must be for a young child.
And, the problems that start with language in Childhood don't end when childhood ends. I've spent a lifetime trying to be better, trying not to be bad, because I don't want to wind up back in the hospital.
Insecurities, need for validation, self-criticism... how much starts with the language used with us as children?
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