Читать книгу Hate Me Now, Thank Me Later: How to raise your kid with love and limits - Dr. Berman Robin - Страница 10

Another pendulum swing in today’s parenting culture is excessive talk and excessive explanations. We’ve gone from “No, because I said so” to reasoning through every issue until we’re blue in the face.

“This generation of parents never stops talking. Parents today don’t spend time just being with their children, so they try to connect by nonstop talking. It is crazy-making for a child. Children tune out after the first few words. They just stop listening.”

—Early education teacher

I observed a two-year-old on a fenced-in balcony. Mum launched into a soliloquy. “Amy, don’t go so close to the edge. You could fall and you could really hurt yourself and that would be so awful. It makes me nervous when you are so close to the edge. You are making Mummy nervous. I’m going to need therapy. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

TMI. The child is two! How about a simple “No, honey, that is not safe,” end of story.

Make it short and sweet. Give them bite-size pieces, which are easily digestible. A parent’s excessive verbiage can get tuned out—or worse, become baggage. This is a perfect example of how we can unintentionally project our stuff onto our children.

It would be nice to leave childhood without having to check bags. All doctors take the Hippocratic Oath. Parents should as well. Above all, “Do No Harm.”

We need to get out of the habit of creating a laundry list of our own fears and sharing them with our children. Do some verbal clutter-clearing before you speak. Children’s brains are developing daily. Let’s not fill them with unnecessary information, white noise, or worse, our own anxiety.

Slow down, take a deep breath, and give yourself a moment before you speak. Edit out what your child does not need to hear. Less is clearly more.

“There is way too much talking in this generation. Too much talking weakens your position as the person in charge. Kids feel unsafe.”

—Therapist

“Parents today talk too much. It overwhelms a child.”

—Phyllis Klein, early childhood educator