Postive Talk

I did a course in Special Education for my teaching degree, and we discussed in class the dangers of labelling children. When you label a child, it can damage the child's self esteem and stop him/her from making an effort. This will result in the label becoming a self fulfilling prophesy. We learned the importance of seeing each child as an individual and being flexible to his/her needs. Now that I have a child of my own, I can see how important this is.

Children tend to believe everything we say. When we tell them, 'You are so clumsy', which is often backed up with 'just like your father/mother', they believe you. Although your intention was for the child to change that behaviour, you have in effect made the behaviour set firmly as part of the child's character. And when these statements are repeated, the more the child will believe in this undeniable truth.

This is quite disturbing, considering that we don't put much thought into what we say to children. When a child plays by himself during playgroup, we comment on how 'anti-social' he is. Or if a child cries a lot, we call her 'naughty'. If a baby crawls around everywhere we say he is a 'troublemaker'. We are labelling children into certain characters after just seeing a few instances of certain behaviours. Behaviours that are often times transient.

So I urge you to be more positive when you talk to/about children. Give them room to grow. Help them seek to be better. If you want them to change their behaviour, reinforce the positive. Say things like, 'Can you be more careful next time?', instead of 'You are so clumsy.' If you need to scold them, say 'That was naughty.' instead of 'You are naughty.' Be deliberate with your words when speaking to children. Because to them, you are the smartest person that they know.

You are lovely, just the way you are.