3 ways parents unconsciously contribute to their child’s negative self-talk
Written by Cindy Hovington, Ph.D. Founder of Curious Neuron, Host of the Curious Neuron Podcast
and Co-Founder of Wondergrade
I was listening to an episode of the 5 Questions podcast with Dan Schawbel where he interviewed Zachary Levi, actor and author of Radical Love: Learning to accept yourself and others and had to take a moment to let something Zachary said sink in.
Zachary talked about his negative self-talk and how much reprogramming he needed to do to improve it. Our inner voice or self-talk stems larger from how others speak of us (see video clip below). “We talk to ourselves the way our parents talk to us, ultimately” Zachary states in the interview. He is right. As parents, we do play a large role in shaping our child’s inner voice. Oftentimes, our parents can unintentionally become our negative inner voice. Now that WE are parents, we need to be mindful of the language we use with our kids and the way we speak to them as well.
“You little brat!” or “Stop being Lazy!”
I was born in the early 80s and a large majority of people I know or speak with in the Curious Neuron community talk about how harsh their parents were with labels when they were growing up. Many of us were called “bad, stupid, lazy, crybaby, brat, a pest, dumb, chicken, idiot” and the list goes on (these are also the more kind words). The reality is that I am still hearing these words being used by parents to describe their children…while they are in front of their children.
The other day, my 3-year-old was teasing a family member and he ran to the sink in the kitchen and was told: “Come back here little brat!”. He was simply being playful and was laughing and having a good time. Why the need for such a negative label identifying them as “good or bad”? We need to work together as a society to change this and empower the next generation with a more positive inner voice.
Many studies focusing on self-talk describe how beneficial positive self-talk is to our mental health and ability to regulate our emotions. If you would like to listen to an episode about self-talk with Dr. Ethan Kross, click the link HERE.
As parents, we are often caught up in difficult moments that make it easy for our negative self-talk to take control. We can feel like a failure as a parent or we can feel like we are not good enough at work. This is then passed on to our kids. Here is how you can become more aware of it to stop the cycle.
3 ways you might be contributing to your child’s negative self-talk:
Labelling or name-calling: Describe the action they did rather than adding a label. For instance, if your 4 -year-old child lied to you about taking a cookie, rather than saying “You are a liar” you can say, “Not telling the truth is a lie and it isn’t acceptable in this home. You can’t tell lies”. You described the action that is not permitted but you didn’t label them this way. Remember, hearing a label over and over leads to us believing it is true. We know this from psychologically and emotionally abusive relationships.
Criticizing: “You ALWAYS yell when you are mad” or “You NEVER share with your brother” are 2 very powerful sentences because of the words “always” and “never”. If a child knows about moments when they did or didn’t do something, for example, if you tell a 5-year-old that they NEVER share, then they might feel that you are not noticing the moments they do. They might think “What’s the point of even sharing SOMETIMES if mom or dad will just say I never share”.
Not validating their emotions: As adults, we can be really harsh on ourselves for experiencing emotions. All emotions are normal and healthy for us to experience. However, very few of us have been taught to accept our emotions and how to cope with them in a healthy way. We were taught to push them to the side as quickly as possible. You don’t have to agree that your child should be frustrated for being mad that they can’t have a cookie before bed, but you CAN tell them that you understand why they are frustrated. You CAN tell them that you understand why they are mad at you because you said no.
Avoiding these 3 important steps can help your child develop better self-esteem, and positive self-talk, feel confident and learn how to regulate their emotions. All of these contribute to better emotional and mental health, better relationships, stronger careers and academic skills and more parenting tools in our pockets.