“10 Things Never To Say to Your Kid”, “All Good Parents Need To Learn This One Word”, “These Common Phrases Said to Children Are Actually Problematic”...
the internet (or at least the corner of it I’m frequently ushered into) seems to be labouring under the fervent belief that there is one universal and “correct” way to talk to your child. I first became aware of this trend, I think, via a series of earnest to-camera videos posted by American doctors, often wearing scrubs and stethoscopes, telling me about this “one dangerous thing I see all the time in my surgery”. I don’t know what I was expecting – eye splinters or thumb infections, perhaps – but it turned out to be something like praising a child for being brave.
Or congratulating them on being well-behaved. Or telling them not to cry. Now, I’m not a doctor, and my only blue cotton two-pieces are pyjamas, not scrubs, but I would like to challenge this sort of advice.
Of course it’s useful to be exposed to other people’s ideas about how to raise children, and there are definitely things to be learnt from other approaches and techniques. That’s why I love playgroups and children’s centres and parks. But I also think that parents and carers – when well supported, well informed and well resourced – are very well placed to work their diction out on their own.
We can, and should, feel confident in our ability to develop our own phrases and enter into a specific dialogue with our specifi.