How to Talk to Children

A recent Huffington Post article by Lisa Bloom has been floating around the interweb that discusses how the way we interact with little girls affects their self-image and personality. This article also reminded me of a chapter in Nurture Shock  on achievement and how the ways that adults can help or hinder a child's motivation simply with their words (and not in the ways you might think; this book is a must read for parents). 

The most interesting commonality I see in these two pieces is that children are very much trying to please adults in general, and their parents and teachers in particular. The end result is that children may be learning more about who they are, what they believe and what they think from how we interact with them than from intrinsic stimuli. In other words, our personal beliefs and acting-out of social norms is contagious to our children.



Is this so hard to believe that focusing on what little girls look like and that a daughter's continual exposure to this sort of shallow adult interaction alters their internal dialogue? Not really. This is basic conditioning.

For example, we have been working really hard on politeness with Finn. We've been reminding him to say "Please" for months and just in the last week he has finally started to say "Milk please" without prompting. What's startling is that the cultural expectations for what a boy should be (rough and tumble, good at science and math, outgoing, muscular, butch, straight, etc.) that we all carry with us could alter his personality, self-esteem, ethics and actions.

These two above mentioned articles focus on self-esteem and motivation, respectively, but I can't help but read into this a little more. What if he is constantly exposed to people who are pessimistic, or intolerant, or pretentious, or bullying?

I know that no one has a stronger effect on a child than the same-sex parent. I know that if I do my job as a parent right, if I am a strong leader, Finn will default to modeling my behavior. Which is just a reminder that I need to be aware of my interactions with him, as well as how I interact with others when he is watching. My words to him aren't enough. It's not good enough to have a private conversation about injustice after witnessing it in public. He needs to see me standing up for what I think is right and confronting "bad" behavior, hypocrisy and intolerance head on - not laughing it off, letting it go or pretending I didn't see it.