Lament of the Mind

vastderp:

the-real-seebs:

softmotherswimming:

emotionalabuseawareness:

Words Can Get In The Way - How to NOT Talk To Kids

SO. FUCKING. IMPORTANT.

Learning to speak to children in a constructive, positively reinforcing, non-abusive way (which was hard to unlearn due to my own abuse) is one of the most important things i have ever learned to do. It’s also dramatically changed how i speak with adults.

Yeah, I wanna emphasize that last part more: This is in no way limited to talking to kids. Do it with everyone.

I have one that really fucked me up as a kid: I’d be chewed out for messing up margin spacing or having a messy desk or being late literally all the time. The teacher would tell me to get my shit together, and I’d apologize and say “I’ll try.” Promising to do my best even though it was really hard.

To which the teacher(s) replied: “Don’t TRY. Do it.”

This was intended to be tough love and empowerment—to put tiny Luka in a can-do mood. To make tiny Luka use his abilities without an attitude of self-defeat.

What tiny, literal-minded Luka understood it to mean, however, was that he was making a mistake if success required effort. I distinctly remember being in the third grade and hanging on the monkey bars thinking about this, in major turmoil because I was so steamed.

“Don’t TRY. DO it!”

I was really mad, because the best I could figure was that was some stupid Lewis Carrolian “Serve the cake before you cut it” bullshit. How can you do something that’s really fucking hard without effort? Was success a matter of being abler? Maybe for smart people, good students, normal kids. Three things I obviously wasn’t, and had my nose rubbed in it any time my timid attempts to appease these tyrants and communicate commitment to cooperate were shot down.

So yeah, don’t say cutting shit to littles, they have a whole internal world where that stuff goes rocketing around like a pinball ringing all their insecurities. If it’s harsh on adult ears it’s ass cancer to a third grader who cares even a little bit about pleasing authority figures.