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

not just “psychological,” but rather can become hard wired into their brains and affect them for their lifetimes.
    What your children do. Your actions speak louder than your words, but your children’s own actions speak louder than your words or actions. What this means is that the more you can get your children to engage in words, emotions, and actions that represent the message you want to communicate, the more directly and powerfully they will and adopt it as their own. In other words, when your children talk, feel, or act in ways that convey a message—for example, being loving to you, sharing with a sibling, or cleaning uptheir bedroom—they are actually sending a positive message to themselves that they can’t misinterpret. These messages carry extra weight because children are both the sender and the recipient of the messages, and action is the best way for these messages to become deeply embedded.
MESSAGE STRATEGIES
     
    Within the general types of conduits I just described through which you communicate messages to your children, there are specific strategies that are the actual means by which the messages are transmitted. The aim of each strategy is to provide a pathway for your messages into your children’s minds.
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    MESSAGE STRATEGIES
     
Catchphrases
Routines and rituals
Activities
Outside support
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    Catchphrases. For just about every message we want to communicate to Catie and Gracie, Sarah or I create a catchphrase or, even better, the girls come up with a catchphrase (e.g., for patience, “It’s great to wait”). These catch-phrases are usually jokey or goofy, easy to remember, and tangible; they’re not ethereal theories or concepts, but down-to-earth ideas and actions. They’re also “sticky,” meaning the girls retain them. Our catchphrases are also often created spontaneously based on something one of us says or does. For example, Catie came up with “The Look” (see chapter 10). Because they are memorable and playful, Catie and Gracie enjoy repeating and making games out of them (e.g., returning to the patience catchphrase, “It’s crate to gate. It’s blate to nate. It’s tate to zate!”). All of these qualities mean that the girls remember and connect the catchphrases to the underlying messages we want them to get. Each of the nine messages described in
Your Children Are Listening
has a catchphrase associated with it, and I offer several catchphrases in each chapter, so asyou progress through the book, you’ll see plenty of examples of how to connect a message to a catchphrase.
    Routines and rituals. As I mentioned earlier, repetition is an essential part of transmitting messages, and rituals provide that consistent replication. Routines and rituals communicate messages not only by what you say or do but also, more powerfully, by the actions your children themselves take. Plus, when they engage in routines and rituals and experience the positive consequences, your children gain “buy-in” and ownership of the messages, which is essential for their long-term adoption of those messages.
    There is a significant body of literature that supports the importance of routines and rituals in children’s intellectual, emotional, social, linguistic, and academic development. Routines, such as those at meals and bedtime, have a practical focus that involves accomplishing necessary daily tasks. They offer children a predictable framework that helps them to organize and make sense of the steadily growing world in which they live. Routines allow children to practice important competencies such as dressing, bathing, and grooming. They also provide children with a sense of familiarity, control, and comfort that instills the sense of security and stability that is so fundamental to development.
    Rituals, such as Sunday dinners and holiday celebrations with extended family, carry with them a deeper meaning, sending messages of connectedness and spirituality to children. They are often seen as special activities that are unique to individual families and, as such, encourage love, closeness, and support. Rituals create an emotional tone in a family that shapes how children experience, interpret, and express emotions. Rituals such as religious ceremonies, family camping trips, or cultural pursuits convey messages about what families value most.
    We regularly establish routines and rituals that further emphasize the messages we want Catie and Gracie to get from us. For example, we want