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

upon dozens of times and it is as if you had never sent the message at all? Well, welcome to the real world of parenting, where nothing goes as expected, what is supposed to work doesn’t, what isn’t assumed to work does, and what does work only works intermittently or only works for a limited time. It takes detective work and a real understanding of your children to figure out why some messages get through easily and others, despite your best efforts, don’t seem to get through at all.
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    MESSAGE BLOCKERS
     
Overly complex messages
Disconnect between send and receive
Too many messages
Inconsistent messages
Conflicting messages
Different conduits, different messages
Fatigue
Unhappy marriages or divorced parents
Siblings
Extended family
Social world
Popular culture
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    Even if you understand the messages you want to communicate to your children, even if you know the conduits through which those messages are conveyed, and even if you have strategies for sending those healthy messages, you can’t be sure that those messages will get through. Every time you send a message to your children, it will probably have to navigate its way through a maze of “message blockers” that can deflect, weaken, contaminate, or outright destroy your intended messages to your children. If you can understand these message blockers, you can lessen their impact and increase the chances that your messages will make it into your children’s psyches.
OVERLY COMPLEX MESSAGES: “HUH?”
     
    One of the challenges of communicating messages to your children is ensuring that they actually understand the messages you send. The key to this understanding is conveying messages in ways that are appropriate for your children’s level of development. I see many parents who send messages that seem perfectly clear to them and then can’t understand why their children aren’t getting those messages. Even worse, parents then blame their children for not getting their messages. The problem is that parents see their messages through their own eyes rather than through those of their children. But your children don’t think the way you do. You have had years of experience during which you have honed your ability to interpret and understand the world. In contrast, your children are still relatively undeveloped when it comes to how they perceive, interpret, analyze, and make decisions about their world, whether they are toddlers, preschoolers, elementary schoolers, or beyond.
    This is why you have to walk in your children’s shoes. If you were them, what message would you be getting? Consider what unique aspects of their current stage of development will influence how they get the messages you send them; for example, are they morereceptive to speech, emotions, or actions? If you can understand their true capabilities at their current age, you will be better able to tailor your messages in ways that are developmentally appropriate and to maximize the chances of their understanding your messages.
DISCONNECT BETWEEN SEND AND RECEIVE: “BUT I DIDN’T MEAN THAT.”
     
    A disconnect between sending and receiving can occur in several places. You may intend to send one message but end up sending another. The disconnect here is between your intention and your action. For example, you may intend to communicate to your children the message that they should eat their vegetables because vegetables will help them to grow big and strong, but the actual message you send is that “I get mad at you when you don’t eat your vegetables.”
    The disconnect can also occur between what you send and what your children receive. Don’t think about the message you mean to convey, but rather the message your children will probably get. Ask yourself: How clear is my message? If I were three years old, for instance, what message would I get? Here’s an example. You work very hard at a job for which you earn a good living that affords your family a comfortable lifestyle. You want to send your children the message that you love your work and taking care of your family is important to you. But the message they get is that “my momma cares more about her job than she does about me.” These two very different messages have very different ramifications for your children’s perceptions of your work and how you feel about them.
    To clarify the messages you send about your work, you could ensure that your children get your real message about taking care of your family by