| "This is an important book. It will
help build family solidarity across the country, one family at a time." "So much of what children think of themselves comes from how parents talk to them. This book gives parents the words they need to build positive character traits in their children." --Young Jay Mulkey, Ph.D. President, Character Education Institute, San Antonio, TX |
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Matt, age six, came in the house crying hysterically. Tears flowed down his cheeks and he couldn't catch his breath. I put him on my lap and held him close. His breathing slowed as I rubbed his back, but the stream of tears continued.
"What's wrong?" I asked as I continued to rub him.
"Randy," he blurted out between sobs.
"Randy hit you?"
"No."
"Randy knocked you down?"
"No."
"What?"
"Randy," sob, sob "called me stupid!"
Randy was Matt's 12-year-old brother, and occasionally he chose behaviors like calling Matt stupid.
"Randy, called you stupid?" I repeated.
"Yes."
I turned Matt around, looked him straight in the eye, and launched into some unusual parent talk.
"You're a car!" I told him.
"What?"
"You're a car!"
"Dad, what are you doing?"
"I'm calling you a car. Car, Car, Car, Car, Car!"
By this time Matt had stopped crying. I had his full attention.
"Matt, there's something interesting going on here," I told him. "I'm calling you a car and you're not crying."
"Yeah..."
"Would you mind explaining that to me?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I'm calling you a car and you're not crying. How come?"
"Dad," he offered with a disgusted look on his face, "I'm not a car!"
Then I had him. "Well, you know what, Matt? You're not stupid either."
"Ohh," I heard him say, and I could see the wheels beginning to turn in his head.
Matt was having his first encounter with a concept that could positively affect the rest of his life. It is this:
MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT SOMEBODY SAYS TO YOU IS WHAT YOU SAY TO YOURSELF ABOUT WHAT THEY SAY TO YOU.
When my parent talk was, "You're a car," Matt said to himself, "No, I'm not," or "What is my dad doing?" or "He sure doesn't know me." When Randy called him stupid, he could have said to himself, "No, I'm not," or "What's the matter with Randy?" or "He sure doesn't know me."
You can't control the entire world and get everyone to talk to you just the way you want to be talked to. But you can always control how you talk to yourself about how others talk to you. Making your talk more important than their talk is a sign of maturity and self-responsibility and a skill we can help our children learn.
Teach your children where their power truly is. Help them appreciate the fact that their power is not in controlling what others say to them. Their power lies within and is regulated by how they choose to talk to themselves
