Every day we use hundreds, maybe thousands of words with our children.
In each of our expressions we choose, consciously or unconsciously, each of those words, with its emotional quality, with its power as food or knife, with its capacity to care and love or (sometimes) destroy.
The dagger words will not only destroy our children, but if they do not remedy it, if they do not make a thorough review of their childhood, they will continue to circulate from generation to generation.
The dagger words are kept in such a dark place in our hearts that they are always present, no matter the years that pass. They even reappear upon reaching maternity or paternity, like a cloudy hurricane that was hidden.
The dagger words need to be cleaned from the inside out, it is the child himself/herself turned into an adult who gets rid of them after hard interior work.
The best thing is that we can save our children a good part of this bad drink (also a few therapies) we can stop and think before saying the words that hurt, the words dagger.
We all know what they are, we have heard them too many times from our parents or teachers. They have run wild with infinite impunity. They are so common that they have become part of a cultural tradition, even of a collective imagination.
It’s those words that hurt everyone even if we pretend not to. They are those that some of us cannot bear to listen to even as adults.
They are, each and every one of the adjectives, especially the negative ones that we would never use with a stranger but are the daily bread in many families: crybaby, selfish, complainer, ugly, bully, idiot, silly, lazy, clumsy, weak, ungrateful, stupid, slow,…
They are the phrases said (sometimes unconsciously) to undermine the self-confidence of children and/or cause them fear (which is not respect):
“As you go you will find out”
“You are unbearable”
“As I tell your father/mother”
“Because I say so”
“You are all equally useless”
“You are worthless”
“Who do you think you are?”
“No problem”
“Again you will cry”
“You are just as stubborn as your father/mother/grandfather”
“You shut up, I’m talking”
“You are the only one that gives problems”
“You must have done something”
“You always do what you want”
“You have a lot of story”
“I didn’t teach you that”…
The list is endless.
The words dagger are not blows, but they hurt and hurt as much or more than blows. The words dagger generate hatred, resentment, guilt, anger and resentment. The words dagger -if they are in the majority- immobilize and can leave sequelae or cause disorders and this is important to recognize.
No dagger word is innocuous, but every time we have the opportunity to reflect and not pronounce it.
We always have the opportunity to leave them (once and for all) on the side of the road and move together with our children towards love and understanding.
We always have the opportunity to apologize if we have not done so before.
Always the opportunity to heal that girl / or that we were, because deep down it is the wound that sees the dagger born.
And little by little the dagger words are replaced by kiss words that nourish and caress… and hundreds of kiss words automatically come out of our mouths every day.
They are those words that we know feel good and feed smiles.
Myriam Moya Tena
You may be interested in reading:
Child abuse affects brain circuits
I like this:
Charging…