Self-talk whether positive or negative provides a blue print for their future personality. If this step is done right then you will help them be someone who will think positive thoughts even if everything around them is wrong.
While it is important to teach your kids the right language to talk with others. As parents, it is your responsibility to teach kids the right language to talk with themselves as well.
We are constantly processing information from our surroundings and comprehending it in our language. E.g., if someone is rude to us, not everyone will feel insulted.
- Some might feel hurt and say that the person is so rude how can they talk like that?
- While some may be compassionate and say he behaved like this because he might be frustrated.
- While some would be indifferent and ignore that particular incident and carry on with their work.
Now each of the above-mentioned thought processes will either make you emotionally weak or strong. You have to make your child emotionally strong so that they can handle the problems in their life effectively. It is essential to teach them the right language about major things in life.
A huge portion of the language in which they speak with themselves is influenced by the language in which we talk to them and also with ourselves.
Your subconscious mind constantly picks up the energy from people around you. This means that your kids too can catch your thought processes and subtle emotions as well. This is how your thought process influences your kid’s thought processes.
Now let’s talk about the right language in some of the major aspects of our life.
The Language Of Competiton
It is important to let your children know that their worth should not be dependent on, whether they are better than others. The language that ‘we are good at only when we perform better than others’ is not the right language.
The right language is ‘we are good irrespective of whether we perform better than others or not.’ Our job is to put our best efforts into the work at hand. Competition might bring out the best in some of you, but then why be dependent upon the feeling of competition to motivate you? Let us learn to motivate ourselves and give our best, irrespective of the competition.
If you teach your kids the language of competition and comparison, they will carry it till adulthood. Sometimes even when they are doing well in life they won’t be happy, because there always will be someone better than them at something or other.
When they see other people doing better than them, they could feel jealous and not inspired by them. Jealousy will only make them feel like they are not good or smart enough and that could be detrimental to their self-confidence.
Teach them to be inspired by the kids who are good at studies or any co-curricular activities. So, when they grow up, they won’t tell themselves…
‘He/She is smarter… they can do it… I can’t’
Instead their self-talk will be…
‘Wow!! they are doing such a good job and if they can do it… I can do it too.’
2. The Language Of Success
We define success as having a high-paying job, a big house, vacationing in foreign countries, etc, while all of these things are good. They cannot be the only things that define success.
Success also means talking kindly with ourselves when we fail, being able to self-motivate when we are dejected, be happy for other people’s success. Because if these basics are not right, your kids won’t be able to enjoy the wealth and the luxuries for which they have worked so hard for.
It’s important to teach them a good definition of success, one which includes taking good care of their mind, body, and soul along with having good relationships with others and a successful career.
3. The Language Of Happiness
You take your kids to all the fancy places, buy the latest gadgets and toys, and purchase branded clothes. But telling them that “We are buying so much for you; you should be happy is not the right language.”
The right language is that happiness should be unconditional. Irrespective of whether you have all the luxuries of the world or not. Happiness should be created by the right thoughts and not by acquiring materialistic things. You have got to explain to them that materialistic things can be a part of our happiness but they cannot be the source of it.
Teach them to be happy in all the situations of life. For this, you will have to learn to be happy unconditionally. You being unhappy with your job or relationships and telling them to be happy about life, won’t work.
The belief that being upset sometimes is normal, should not be encouraged. Being happy is the normal state of our mind. When we tell them that sometimes we get upset and it’s O.K., we validate that feeling, and once validated we don’t try to get back to happiness ASAP.
Instead, we try to distract ourselves with shopping or drinks or unhealthy food. But if you believe that sadness is not normal, then even if things don’t go your way, you won’t be dependent on unhealthy habits to cheer yourself up. You will try to do it by creating happiness from within.
4. The Language Of Work
The language about work should not be that work and joy are two different things. You have got to learn to combine them and enjoy your work. Teach your kids either to find the work they love or love the work that they have found.
Instil in them the need to have a beautiful relationship with work. Work should be a source of joy and not a source of misery because we spent more than half our life doing work. We have got to learn to make it enjoyable.
Again, a major factor here is your relationship with work, if you have a healthy relationship with work, they will subconsciously learn it. If they listen to you grumbling about your work, won’t help them have a loving relationship with work. Teach them a beautiful self-talk by using affirmations like…
‘I love my work’
‘There will be challenges at work but I overcome them easily’
‘I always put in my best efforts at everything I do’.
5. The Language Of Stress
Our kids should know that it is not normal to be stressed. It’s not a good sign when our school-going child exclaims ‘I am so stressed, life is so difficult.’ Some of us believe that we do our best under stress. Temporary yes, but in the long run, it does take a toll, either on our health or relationships.
We all deal with stress in our way either by overeating, starving, not sleeping, being angry, overdosing on caffeine or nicotine, etc. This is not the right way to deal with stress. The self-talk should be that…
‘Things are not my way, but I will put in efforts to bring them back to track’
‘I eat healthy food even in times of stress
‘I deal with stress peacefully and with a calm mindset.’
Only when we deal with stress by taking good care of our eating habits, state of mind, and sleeping patterns we can overcome stress and positively work on the area that is giving us stress.
6) The Language about Life
Life is hard!! Should not be your mantra. For it will then become your kid’s mantra as well. Teach them that life is all about our karma. If you think, speak, and act well. Good things will happen to us. And if Your thoughts, words, and actions are not good, problems will arise.
Life should be about setting goals and working towards accomplishing them and not about sitting and complaining about the government, spouse, neighbour, or boss. When your child listens to you blaming and complaining everyone else for the problems in your life. They too inherit that unproductive self-talk. We all know that blaming and complaining about others never solves our problem.
Empower your child with the knowledge that it is possible to fulfil our wishes. You can teach your kids the art of manifesting their desires through my book ‘OM LEARNS GRATITUDE AND OTHER GOOD VALUES.’
The change in your kid’s self-talk will only begin with the change in your self-talk. There are so many people who despite having all the luxuries of the world are not happy, because their self-talk is not of good quality. It is our duty to raise kids who in the face of problems are not stressed, but tell themselves that…
‘COME WHAT MAY I WILL DEAL WITH IT.’
The best way to teach kids is through stories. Teach your child the right language about life through my story The Magic Lessons
How To Switch From Emotional Dependence To Emotional Independence