Parenting: What Messages Do You Send Your Children?

Have you ever stopped and wondered what messages you, as a parent, send your children? Every day in the development of your children they receive messages from family, teachers, the media, and the culture. Some of these messages are positive, and many are negative. Family should be the safe place where you are nurtured, encouraged, molded, and given stability to stand firmly in the world with confidence and self-worth. As parents you need to consider the message that you send your children, recognizing that every message has a long term effect.

What messages do you send your children? Do they promote the identity, life, and relationship skills that you want them to develop? In marriage and parenting you send a plethora of messages everyday through what you say, your body language, and your behaviors. They come through every interaction and experience, and form messages that produce identity, perceived value, and expectations, define capabilities, and develop all the core beliefs that drive your emotions, life, and relationship decisions.

As a Clinical Christian Counselor, I have seen more than a few parents that wanted me to fix their children or teens. No one develops in a vacuum; we develop in a family system and learn messages and behavior patterns from these experiences. Hence, we can’t look at our children’s behaviors without examining our own, and evaluating the messages we have sent. Are these mixed messages, negative messages, or consistent and positive messages?

For example, I once had a father who brought in his teenage son and was upset and ranting about his son’s anger issues. He said that when his son got angry he would break things. I asked him a little about the family and himself, and eventually got to the point that was very obvious to me. I asked what he did when he was angry, and he confessed that he had punched the wall more than a few times. This information added to what I was observing by the way he communicated angrily, while ranting. His son had learned what his father lived.

The best way to help mold and teach your children, is for you as parents to be teachable, gain understanding, self-control, and develop healthy life and relationship skills yourself. Then, you can teach and model to your children. You can’t give what you don’t have. 

It is not telling children what to do that teaches them, but by modeling for them how you do it that counts. Do your actions and your words match? Do you show affection and then say hurtful words? If you want your children to face challenges head on, do you face things, or do you avoid and procrastinate? If you want your children to control themselves, do you control yourself? If you want your children to feel valuable and know they can achieve anything, do you denigrate them for failures, or encourage them to get up and keep moving forward, giving them vision to try again?

If your teenager is frustrating you, what message do you send by saying…

“What is wrong with you? Why can’t you just do what you are supposed to do? Do you want to flip burgers for the rest of your life?” 

The message is, “You are defective, something is wrong with you at your core, and your future is bleak because you don’t have what it takes.” If you want to improve your children’s behavior you don’t berate their identity, and lock them into a pattern of behavior. This is the opposite of what you are trying to accomplish.

It is important for you as a parent to express what you feel, and correct your children, but consider if you are addressing your child positively.

Instead of the above negative sentences you can say…

“I know that you can do what is needed, if you choose to put your mind to it. You can be anything that you want to be, but it requires you to make good choices. So what can you do to improve your decisions?”

Your presentation in words, body language, and actions is usually due to frustration. Most of the time your motives are to get your children to wake up and change their behavior. Unfortunately, the negative wording and messages have the opposite effect.

It isn’t just with your words, but it is also your body language that sends messages. If you roll your eyes, or heave a heavy sigh the message you send screams, “I am disgusted with you, and you are stupid. How long do I have to put up with you?”

Likewise actions, or lack of actions, sends messages. If you do not respond when your child speaks, or do not look up from what you’re doing, you send a message that says, “You are not worth my time to listen, or what you have to say is unimportant to me. Don’t bother sharing your day or your feelings with me.”

You want your children to feel safe to come to you with anything.

If you get angry and emotional when your children share their feelings, a failure, or fear, you also send similar negative messages. These types of messages destroy bonding and trust, and can produce children that will never share anything with you. This is not what you want as a parent. Do you send your children messages that it is safe to share anything with you, or do they feel like they have to protect themselves from you or your reactions?

Don’t teach, “You can’t do it.” Teach, “How can you do it?”

If your children fail, encourage them to get up, try again, and find solutions. Don’t promote negative image and faulty identity labels due to their failures. Don’t label them based on negative behaviors or place a title on them. You don’t want your child to speak these negative things over themselves. This also must be corrected.

It is very important to view the people in your life through an understanding that behavior is not your identity. Don’t speak behaviors that are negative over your children.

They form identity titles like you are…

*Rebellious       * stupid       * undisciplined       * bad       * misbehaver      * loser      

You correct your children through boundaries, and consistent healthy consequences.  Instead of the above labels you can say,

“Your behavior is rebellious right now, how can you correct that immediately?”

“This is not a wise choice. You are a smart kid what do you think you can do differently?”

“You are struggling with self-control and you need to choose to be disciplined. You can sit in your room until you choose to disciple yourself.”

“You are a good kid, and this poor behavior does not line up with who you are.”

“You made a choice to misbehave and will receive this consequence. Please think about it so you do not choose this again.”

“You can do anything you set your mind to even after failing, so get back up and try again.”

Identity is who you are; behavior is what you do.

Everyone can improve, grow, and adjust their behaviors. If you identify unhealthy behaviors and choices, then you can evaluate and change. If you believe that your identity at your core is defective, then you won’t even attempt change. You may think, “Why bother; it isn’t just a behavior to correct, but who I am as a person that must be changed.”

This thought process immobilizes you and makes change impossible because the belief develops that says, “I am not capable of being different, so why bother trying. This is who I am.” This agreement forms a faulty core belief, and the person begins to wear a faulty identify. The label then dictates emotions, speech patterns, and behaviors.

Everyone receives these negative messages from the culture, media, and peers. In your family you should provide the stability to rebuff these messages. When children receive the ten mandatory needs for healthy development it will provide them with stability in the storms of life. These ten essential needs when met sufficiently provide a healthy root system for your children to develop healthy thinking, life, and relationship skills. They are: acceptance, affection, appreciation, approval, attention, comfort, encouragement, respect, security, and support.

Consider how well the messages you send your children provide for these ten needs. Ask yourself 3 key questions to evaluate the messages that you send. Reword what you say when you are frustrated or angry to apply the 3 keys.

Key Number #1 – Know what identity you are placing on your children as a label. Ask yourself what messages you are sending to your children about who they are as people.

Key Number #2 – Know what beliefs and expectations you are forming by the messages that you send. What do the messages that you send say about your child’s value, worth, capabilities, and future?

Key Number #3 – Do you allow your children’s behaviors to define them in the above two keys? Ask yourself if you separate their identity from their behaviors, and do your words and actions reflect that belief.

There are no bad children; there are only bad behaviors. Encourage the identity of your child while correcting poor behaviors through boundaries and healthy consequences. Your words, body language, and actions scream messages that children pick up. So be cautious in how you communicate to them.

As a parent you are to identify issues and problems, and address them with your children. Healthy life skills do not minimize, or avoid, but confront in a positive way. When your children are missing the mark, frustrating you, or getting into trouble, you must address their behaviors and correct them, providing consequences for their actions.

I would always tell me children that, “You get what you pick. If you choose this, then this is what you get, and if you choose that, then that is what you get.” It is poor grammar, but it was for emphasis and got the point across. For example, if they got in trouble and were grounded I would say, “I didn’t choose to ground you; you received what you chose by what decision you made.” Teaching your children to be accountable and responsible for their behaviors is very important.

When you speak to your children, consider that it is to meet your children’s needs, train, correct, and confront in a positive encouraging way. Identify their strengths and errors, but do not condemn or denigrate your child’s identity. If you fail at this you will speak, angry, hurtful words that crush the spirit of your children and produce negative messages about self, value, and potential. Remember, when you fail you have another opportunity to teach your children by going back to them and apologizing and correcting what was said. You can turn those messages around while teaching responsibility, and humility.

“…I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live…” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Your choice of words, body language, and behaviors in the way that you address issues has a great effect on you and your children, and your children’s children. The way to do it correctly is to think and identify the messages that you send instead of just being reactive to situations that you face as a parent. It is worth the time and energy to consistently check yourself, and ask yourself the three key questions. When you do this regularly and consider the messages that you send, it becomes a habit that produces good fruit in your life, and in all of your relationships.

Dr. Michele

Copyright © 2013 by Michele Fleming Ph.D.