Let’s get off the bad parenting bandwagon, shall we?
How we say things matters
I found a headline in my email this morning that is an example of everything I don’t like thrown at parents:
7 Damaging Parenting Behaviors That Keep Children From Growing Into Leaders
Worse (or at least funnier), this short blog was offered up by Thrive Global, Arianna Huffington’s website focused on well-being, under the tagline “Live Better.”
What I would want to see instead?
My first stab at it would be something like this -
7 Parenting Behaviors to Help Kids Become Who They Want to Be
Small shift, big difference
In my research on learning, I have found that how we say things has an enormous impact on what we think. The words we use reflect who we are and what we value, and they shape both our outlook and approach to life. Here’s why I think the title difference matters:
1. Fear based vs Encouraging
The message in the story heading is clear — “What you’re doing is wrong and it is screwing up your kid. Or it could screw up your kid. So you better watch out, and you’d better read this — and everything you can — to make sure that you don’t screw up your kid. You need to get it right.”
Parenting from this kind of fear is not a win. It isn’t going to produce strong, healthy children who know themselves, have trust in their abilities, and are comfortable asserting and maintaining their own boundaries. When we encourage rather than frighten, we increase our capacity for creative thinking and for joy.
2. Prohibitive vs Empowering
Look at the language — keeping them from something. Like fear, this mindset is one of negation, of deficiency. When writers take this kind of position, what they’re saying to parents is “You’re holding your child back. You’re messing up. Don’t you want to stop doing that? Just read my stuff. I’ll tell you how to do it right.” This kind of position focuses our attention and energy on what is not in the world, or what we don’t want. It also asserts the authority of other people to tell us what to do.
Saying what we do want is much more powerful. It requires that we be clear about what that is, so that we can express it to our children. It gives children the vocabulary and mental tools to guide their own actions toward what is being asked of them. It also establishes a more positive framing, setting the foundation for kids to build a more optimistic outlook.
3. Directive vs Self-determining
Leaders — here the implicit idea is that our children should excel, and that our end-goal as parents should be to thrust them into that. It pits us against other parents in a competitive race to produce the most accomplished children.
I don’t agree with this goal. Not all children are destined to become leaders. Nor do we want them all to be. Not everyone aspires the kind of flashy ‘greatness’ that screams from so many parenting pieces. Far better that our kids know who they are, know and value their strengths, recognize their challenges, and live in a way that allows them to bring the best of who they are into the world.
4. Clickbait oversimplification vs Complexity
7 behaviors — the very idea that there are a specific number of ‘behaviors’ that if we just pay attention to them, all will be well, oversimplifies the real work of parenting. This kind of clickbait is everywhere online, as the battle for attention accelerates. It is fueling a short attention span and the desire for easy answers. Kids aren’t simple problems to be solved though. They are dynamic, changing beings who require one thing primarily from us — our presence.
Coming to know and understand the child in front of us takes patience, and time. It is messy, hard work. Like all complex work, it can be maddening, fun, and delightful. Focusing on who our children want to be, and guiding them towards the skills they need to become that, is truly rewarding.
Title revisited
How Parents Can Help Kids Learn Who They Want to Be
That would be a very different article. It might even cover some of the same ground as the heading I don’t like, yet it would take a fundamentally different approach. We shouldn’t be frightened into thinking about what we are doing. Parents should be encouraged and supported in their inquiry.
That’s how we learn best.
That’s what we’re saying our kids need after all.
Maybe I’ll write that one.
Thanks for reading! My first book — Wired To Listen: What Kids Learn from What We Say is now out on Amazon.
