Your Children Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You

effectively than any other message. If you are angry, they will get that message. If you are sad, they will know it. If you are happy, they will feel it. No matter what you say! Even if you say or do something to cover up your emotions, it’s likely your feelings will come through. And, if your children get different messages through your words, emotions, and actions, your emotional messages will take precedence in your children’s psyches.
    That’s why it’s so important to make sure that your verbal, behavioral, and emotional messages are aligned. Especially with young children with limited language capabilities, you can say something, and even if they don’t understand the words, if the message is infused with the appropriate emotional content, then they will nonetheless get the deeper message. And if you can usemultiple conduits, that is, combine words, actions, and emotions, you send a truly resonant message that your children won’t be likely to miss.
    What you do. The cliché “actions speak louder than words” is as true with children, if not truer, as with anyone else. Young children are incredibly alert to what you do. They are watching and listening even when you don’t think they are. I’m sure you’ve been in a situation where your children mimicked your facial expressions, body language, words, and behavior before you even realized how you were expressing yourself in those ways. Put simply, your children want to do what you do. That influence bestows on you extraordinary power as a role model. But, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Yes, this realization might instill in you great fear that your children might pick up some of your less admirable messages. At the same time, you also possess the ability to model wonderfully positive behavior.
    Who you are. When I talk about communicating messages to your children through your words, emotions, and actions, I don’t just mean the messages that are aimed at them specifically for their consumption. In fact, the way you interact with the world outside your direct relationship with your children, and the messages that you send to them inadvertently just by being who you are, may have an equally influential effect on them. For example, your relationships with others in your life; your work, avocations, and interests; your emotional reactions; and your conversations with others during which your children are within earshot all convey powerful messages to your children.
    This influence of the messages you send to your children by just being you can be a two-sided coin. The positive side of the coin is shiny and smooth, and gives you the ability to convey really wonderful messages. For example, if you devote your free time to working at a homeless shelter, are a voracious reader, stay calm in emotional storms, or are an affectionate spouse, you send your children really healthy messages.
    The other side of the coin, however, is more tarnished and rough. As I have mentioned previously, one thing that people often forget is that parents are, first and foremost, human beings who bring lots of good stuff to their role as parents but also probably bring some baggage that can prevent them from sending the most positive messages to their children. These less-than-healthy messages are also expressed in the totality of who you are: how you describe the world, the emotions that dominate your life, and the behavior you engage in day to day. For example, if you are critical and catty toward others, yell when angry, or treat your mother badly, you are sending decidedly unhealthy messages to your children. Your goal and challenge is to highlight and communicate the positive aspects of who you are and be aware of and mitigate the less attractive qualities that you, like all parents, possess.
    Recent neurological research is shedding light on the incredible power parents have as role models, why their influence is so potent, and what areas of development are influenced by role modeling. The “mirror neuron system” is believed to be an area of the brain that is activated when children simply watch others. It has been implicated in the healthy development of empathy, nonverbal communication, emotional recognition, social behavior, motor skills, and language. Damage to the mirror neuron system has also been suggested as a possible contributor to autism. What this research tells us is that the messages that your children get from you are