Parenting, Children and Words: It’s Time to Change Your Parenting Vocabulary!

No matter how much children grow up, no matter how successful and confident they turn out to be, what matters for them the most still remains getting their parent’s approval; their encouragement and their admiration. Right from the time they were toddlers when they’d spill juice on the carpet and look at you instantly for signs of trouble to their first date they’d want you meet- all they need is your acceptance or rejection.

Words Mean a Lot!

Words are not simply an arrangement of letters; they have meanings and deeper implications. Often enough, we don’t really think what to say to our kids. Why should we? We’re no linguists and you don’t have that much of time to stop and think what impact your next sentence could cast on your child- sometimes you’re angry or busy and simply blurt.

And that’s exactly what’s wrong with it all- we don’t have enough time to sped with our family. We’re always in a hurry or angry or simply pre-occupied and when our little ones come up to us to show or tell us what’s important to them, we tend to become disinterested. Or on the contrary, we’re so lost in our thoughts and just to appear genuine and loving we tend to use words that can affect our kids in ways we won’t realize.

The Bad Parenting Words

OK, so if you think that you put in effort to use encouraging words to your child, go on and have a look at this infographic and spot the words or phrases you do use with your kids:

‘Good job!’, ‘Hurry up!’ and ‘Be careful’ are the words that are on the top of almost every parent’s vocabulary.

It’s Time to Change the Vocab

So let’s get started and practice to never say the following words and phrases to our kids and instead say something similar to these suggestions:

‘Good Job!’

Let’s start with most common thing parents say to their kids. They make a drawing, they do their chores or simply get the math answer right, parents would simply say, ‘good job! No! That has to stop. It’s time we stopped telling our kids they’ve done a ‘good’ job and start giving it a more genuine feel. We need t stop commending them on the outcome and need to reward them on the effort! Don’t let them grow up considering only the outcome and not the effort. Try saying, ‘You’ve put in a lot of effort!’ or you ‘Really tried hard’ or simply ‘great effort’.

‘Hurry Up’

Another of the most commonly used phrase by moms with ever-shrinking free time. But pushing your kid to ‘hurry up’ is not really encouraging! It sounds commanding and makes your child feels he or she can’t pace up with you. This can greatly affect his or her self-worth in ways you won’t even feel. So next time when your kids are throwing tantrums and won’t put on those socks, try saying, ‘we need to hurry!’ or if you want to sound really polite, you can say, ‘I’d really appreciate if you could do ——–‘.

‘Stop it or else!’

Now that’s a phrase probably we all grew up listening to. And this doesn’t mean our kids should, too.  Smart parenting is all about letting your kids grow up feeling that they’re mature enough to understand things and are not simply bossed around by parents about choices they make in life. So, threatening them would do them no good. They’d learn to defy you and might turn rebellious. When you complain that your kids won’t just listen to you, it probably implies you’ve been threatening them in one way r the other and that has lost its effect on them. So when you catch your son trolling her little sister, hold your tongue and try saying, ‘I know you can treat her well because usually, you two get along fine’ or, ‘It’s not OK to hurt your sister, she may retaliate and hurt you, too. Why don’t you guys make a truce?’ A few more words but it will certainly make your child to think about his or her actions and possible outcomes and will most probably make them see sense in it.

Adopt Positive Parenting

Adopt smart parenting and try using these words instead of the ones we just discussed and you’d start noticing how much change it brings in your kids. Not only would they grow up knowing what makes them better but also would be logical thinker. So good luck with your parenting vocab!