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

tone toward each other to one of calm and civility (most of the time anyway; no one’s perfect!) and added those essential little tools of politeness: excuse me, please, thank you, and you’re welcome. And lo and behold, after just a few months, they noticed a change in the way their children spoke to them and each other.
    Ty and Alicia believe that one of the greatest signs of respect, for both the giver and the recipient, is the ability to apologize after acting badly. Apologies are powerful because they demonstrate that the people who give them have the self-esteem and self-respect to admit they were wrong, something that is pretty uncomfortable for most people. They also show that the giver of the apology values thereceiver enough to want to make amends. Ty and Alicia also realize that apologies are relatively rare occurrences in our culture; they often come only after someone has been caught “with their hand in the cookie jar,” and they usually lack conviction.
    To ensure that their daughters learned the “art of the apology,” Ty and Alicia did their homework and learned what the best kind of apologies are made of. They found out that an effective apology has several components: saying you’re sorry and being specific about what you are apologizing for, sounding like you mean it, making immediate amends, and changing your behavior for the better in the future. So as soon as their girls were old enough to understand, they were required to apologize for their misbehaviors. Ty and Alicia coached them in the proper way to apologize. For example, if their elder daughter Leigh hit her younger sister Ellie, she was asked to say “I’m sorry for hitting you” (as convincingly as possible), make amends by giving Ellie a gentle touch or a hug, and tell her sister that she would try to not hit her in the future. Of course, the two girls, being sisters, continue to get on each other’s nerves with some regularity, so there is plenty of practice in the art of the apology!

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Message #8: Responsibility Is Your Child’s Shoulders (“That’s the Job”)
     
    Responsibility is another one of those attributes, along with respect, that is so essential to developing healthy relationships. Consider the phrase, “He (or she) is such a responsible person.” What does that message convey about someone? They can be trusted. They are honest and can be counted on to do the right thing. And if they mess up, they’ll, well, take responsibility for their mistakes. That’s the kind of person we want to befriend, work with, or just generally have in our lives. And that is the kind of person you want your child to become.
    Our country was built on responsibility and self-determination. The American Dream was about people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to create a better life for themselves and their families. People didn’t wait for others to give them what they wanted; rather, they “cowboyed up” and did what they needed to do for themselves. If people made mistakes, they accepted culpability and did what they had to do to correct the situation. Americans of early generations knew that the value of responsibility lay in controlling their own destinies and that getting ahead was up to them rather than up to chance or in the hands of others.
    Unfortunately, children these days don’t often get positive messages about responsibility. We live in a culture where people are led to believe that they can get what they want without effort, struggle, or sacrifice (think reality TV and self-help books). Our culture is also one of victimization in which no one, from politicians to athletes to celebrities, seems willing to accept responsibility for their actions and where “the buck” always stops elsewhere. But someone is to blame, and we’re going to sue them to see that “justice” is done.
    Parents don’t always help either. Many parents believe that holding children responsible for their actions will hurt their self-esteem. Instead, parents blame everyone but their children for their bad behavior or poor performance. If Susie isn’t doing well in school, it must be the teacher’s fault. If Joey isn’t winning games, blame the coach. These parents have spoiled their children by giving them everything they want with no strings, such as responsibility, respect, or hard work, attached. The problem is that these children miss out on the benefits of responsibility. Children can’t take responsibility for their