Read Online Your Children Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You by Jim Taylor - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jim Taylor
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importance of consistency in your messages as you enter those situations that are difficult for you. Both approaches will buttress your resolve during those difficult times when it would be so much easier to send a contradictory message or no message at all.
CONFLICTING MESSAGES: “BUT DADDY SAID …”
If you and your spouse send conflicting messages, you pretty much guarantee that your messages won’t get through to your children. Not only will your children not get a clear message, but they will be confused by the contradictory messages from such credible sources and may become paralyzed with uncertainty about what your message really is and what you want them to do.
Another problem with conflicting messages, aside from the obvious fact that children won’t get a clear message, is that children are amazingly adept at learning which parent will give them what they want. Even as young as age two, children can be incredibly manipulative and capable of playing each parent off each other to get what they want. At the very least, if they don’t like the message from their mother (“No, you can’t have any candy”), children will try to get a better message from their father (“Here you go, dear”).
Conflicting messages arise for a number of reasons. Parents may be carrying different mental templates of what constitutes good parenting from their own upbringings. They may, as a result, have divergent parenting philosophies and styles. Parents may havedifferent personalities and temperaments; for example, one is laid back and one is more intense. They may also have different values, such that one parent thinks certain messages are important and the other parent doesn’t. One parent might simply not believe that the other’s message is all that important. Or perhaps worst of all, parents may do what is expedient rather than what is in the best interests of their children.
To reduce conflicting messages, parents need to look at their parenting beliefs and explore where the conflicting messages are coming from. As I mentioned in chapter 1, in-depth discussions about parenting philosophies and styles should be prerequisites to identifying and resolving possible conflicts in the messages that you send to your children. In an ideal world, you want to arrive at an accord long before you communicate any messages to your children. In the real world, the sooner you can craft a consistent message, the better it will be for your children.
DIFFERENT CONDUITS, DIFFERENT MESSAGES: “DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I FEEL.”
Messages are conveyed through a variety of conduits, whether consciously or otherwise. We usually first think about messages that are expressed verbally because speech is adults’ primary means of communication. But children are still in the early stages of mastering language. Although they may understand a great deal of what you say, they are only beginning to grasp the complexity of your words. At the same time, children are very intuitive and have been honing their emotional radar since day one of life. In fact, this intuitiveness to emotional messages dates back to the earliest human beings. In our cavepeople days when our vocabulary consisted of inflected grunts, parents communicated with their children nonverbally, so the survival of little ones depended on how well they could pick upon their parents’ messages through their tone, facial expressions, and body language. That adeptness is still evident today and plays an important role in your children understanding you and getting your messages.
This greater sensitivity to emotions than words means that if you communicate a verbal message that conflicts with the emotional content of the message, chances are your children will get the emotional message. For example, let’s imagine you’re trying to be calm and patient although you’re soon going to be late dropping your son off at preschool because he is dragging his feet about getting ready. You force a
CONFLICTING MESSAGES: “BUT DADDY SAID …”
If you and your spouse send conflicting messages, you pretty much guarantee that your messages won’t get through to your children. Not only will your children not get a clear message, but they will be confused by the contradictory messages from such credible sources and may become paralyzed with uncertainty about what your message really is and what you want them to do.
Another problem with conflicting messages, aside from the obvious fact that children won’t get a clear message, is that children are amazingly adept at learning which parent will give them what they want. Even as young as age two, children can be incredibly manipulative and capable of playing each parent off each other to get what they want. At the very least, if they don’t like the message from their mother (“No, you can’t have any candy”), children will try to get a better message from their father (“Here you go, dear”).
Conflicting messages arise for a number of reasons. Parents may be carrying different mental templates of what constitutes good parenting from their own upbringings. They may, as a result, have divergent parenting philosophies and styles. Parents may havedifferent personalities and temperaments; for example, one is laid back and one is more intense. They may also have different values, such that one parent thinks certain messages are important and the other parent doesn’t. One parent might simply not believe that the other’s message is all that important. Or perhaps worst of all, parents may do what is expedient rather than what is in the best interests of their children.
To reduce conflicting messages, parents need to look at their parenting beliefs and explore where the conflicting messages are coming from. As I mentioned in chapter 1, in-depth discussions about parenting philosophies and styles should be prerequisites to identifying and resolving possible conflicts in the messages that you send to your children. In an ideal world, you want to arrive at an accord long before you communicate any messages to your children. In the real world, the sooner you can craft a consistent message, the better it will be for your children.
DIFFERENT CONDUITS, DIFFERENT MESSAGES: “DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I FEEL.”
Messages are conveyed through a variety of conduits, whether consciously or otherwise. We usually first think about messages that are expressed verbally because speech is adults’ primary means of communication. But children are still in the early stages of mastering language. Although they may understand a great deal of what you say, they are only beginning to grasp the complexity of your words. At the same time, children are very intuitive and have been honing their emotional radar since day one of life. In fact, this intuitiveness to emotional messages dates back to the earliest human beings. In our cavepeople days when our vocabulary consisted of inflected grunts, parents communicated with their children nonverbally, so the survival of little ones depended on how well they could pick upon their parents’ messages through their tone, facial expressions, and body language. That adeptness is still evident today and plays an important role in your children understanding you and getting your messages.
This greater sensitivity to emotions than words means that if you communicate a verbal message that conflicts with the emotional content of the message, chances are your children will get the emotional message. For example, let’s imagine you’re trying to be calm and patient although you’re soon going to be late dropping your son off at preschool because he is dragging his feet about getting ready. You force a
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