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

information they can ingest, and you control most of the developmental “nourishment” they receive. You control the physical, daily social world in which your children live, which plays an increasingly important role in their later development. You determine the house they live in, your neighborhood, and the childcare or preschool your children attend. You decide what they eat, when they sleep, and their daily activities. You choose their playdates and the peers with whom they interact and the type and frequency of exposure to popular culture. In otherwords, during those early years, you have the opportunity to control the messages your children get. Other messages, many not as nourishing for the development of young children, will arrive soon enough.
THEY GET THE MESSAGE
     
    At the heart of
Your Children Are Listening
is this message:
Children become the messages they get the most.
Given the inherent power that you have in shaping your children through your messages, the core question you should ask yourself is, “How can I be sure I am sending the healthiest messages to my children?” The answer to that question has two parts: First, you need to be clear about what messages you want to communicate to your children. And second, you must develop your own skills in conveying those messages.
    The messages that come early in your children’s lives are particularly significant because, before long, your children will be getting messages from many much less controllable and less benign sources. Peers and popular culture will inexorably introduce children to all kinds of information and attitudes—good, bad, and downright dangerous. All you can do is attempt to transmit positive messages early in your children’s lives as a form of immunization against the onslaught of harmful messages they are certain to receive as they get older.
THE GIFT OF MESSAGES
     
    What values and beliefs do you want to instill in your children? What kind of people do you want your children to become? How can you prepare them for a future that is largely unforeseeable? These are fundamental questions that all parents ask. The answers that you come up with will determine how you raise your children.
    From my work I know that the vast majority of parents come up with similar answers. We want our children to thrive, to be kind and generous people, to find success, happiness, and meaning in their lives. We want our children to feel good about who they are, to pursue meaningful goals, and do well in school and their careers. We want them to be thoughtful, respectful, and responsible. We want them to develop healthy relationships, feel connected with the world in which they live, and find love. Ultimately, we all want our children to become decent human beings. And the way to realize these hopes for our children is to send them the right messages. Your hopes and your messages are the gifts that you can give your children every day of their lives.
YOUR CHILDREN ARE WORKS OF ART
     
    Children are like paintings that start at birth with only broad genetic strokes on an otherwise blank canvas. During infancy, more distinct shapes and colors add to the complexity of the canvas. Then, in toddler-hood and during the preschool and elementary school years, more precise strokes, textures, and colors allow us to begin to see what the final work of art might look like. You are the principal artist at this stage. Eventually, your children will take over and continue to refine the work of art until it becomes a genuine self-portrait. Your messages during your children’s early years are the most important contributions you will make to the masterpiece that they will become.
    You begin to make your contributions to the painting by sending messages to your children long before you think they might actually understand the messages. For infants as young as one day old, eye contact, tone of voice, physical contact, affection, and responsiveness to their needs all communicate messages of love, security, and connectedness.
    The work of art becomes more interesting in toddlerhood, when children begin to walk, acquire language, and develop complexcognitive and motor skills. Toddlerhood is also the time when children start to really get parents’ messages. In some ways, toddlers are still more baby than child; they are needy, pure, and unprepared for the world. In other ways, they are gaining the complexity and understanding of the adults into which they will grow.