We propose you, within our Maternity and paternity course, analyze some of the most common phrases that, without thinking, leave our lips and that, more than helping, harm our children and our relationship with them. Between the phrases that must not be said We choose to start: "You are going to drive me crazy" (or crazy, it is understood).
We have talked extensively in our Maternity and Paternity Course about how we can learn to control ourselves when we feel overwhelmed by children's behavior and how to communicate better with them. Let's now work with some examples of those phrases that should not be told to children.
That I do not say that it may not be true that sometimes children, when they are uprooted or pass an uncontrolled phase, make our serenity wobble. But you have to be careful with how we express it.
"You are going to drive me crazy"
If we tell you that it will drive us crazyFirst, we tell you that it is absolutely unbearable, to the point of harming us. That conveys a strong dislike to the child and damages his self-image, undermining his self-esteem. In addition, it makes him feel deeply guilty, since he comes to think, because they are literal in interpreting us, which can really cause us to lose our mind.
Possibly there are children to whom this seems to slip, which does not affect them at all. If this happens, it is possible that they have come to believe to such an extent what we tell them, that they do not trust to improve and have assumed that they are what they are, bad children that cause pain to their family. And that's really sad.
Emotional blackmail
If we usually use that phrase we are exercising a emotional blackmail towards them, transferring our discomfort and rejection, and forcing them to feel guilty of something that will normally be annoying, but it is normal and natural behavior in a child who needs more attention or more space to play and expand.
The fault, in the end, is not the child's, but ours for not having better served their needs or not knowing how to contain and guide them.
This does not mean, in any way, that we should allow dangerous, aggressive or inconsiderate behaviors by children, but that we should learn to calm down and communicate with them in a respectful and empathetic manner.
When we hear ourselves say that about "you are going to drive me crazy" let's reconsider and rectify. We are very capable of improving and learning to stop the tongue in time, just as we challenge it before being rude or harmful in our relationships with adults (which surely also sometimes breaks us down).
Once we have stopped using that phrase we will be able to replace it with others that, surely, express our true thoughts and feelings better.
What does it mean that "they will drive us crazy"?
Let's stop now to try understand what that phrase means. Possibly we are very tired and unable to react in a controlled manner to a situation that overflows us, that is clear. The reason for our overflow will surely not be, exclusively, that the child is with a tantrum or doing something stressful or dangerous.
There will be more: exhausting work, an argument with a partner or with our partner, and, in general, negative feelings in relation to our adult life. Possibly it is not just the child, but something that transcends this specific event and now explodes. If that is the case, let us consider that the child, no matter how dissatisfied we are with what he is doing at that moment, is not who it's making us "go crazy" and, therefore, we have no moral right to discharge the frustration, anger or fatigue in it.
And this point I want to highlight, sometimes it may make us feel relaxed to explode and unload the tension in an argument or shouts, but the opponent, in this case, is clearly inferior to the conditions in the confrontation.
The child is helpless in the face of hard words and emotional blackmail, it depends totally on us, bigger, stronger, smarter and with power over them, besides being the figures from which he receives love and protection. Therefore, even if you download us shout that it's driving us crazy It is not moral to do so.
But now let's go, controlled what is up to our adult world, to what the child is doing. It may be running around the house and shouting, bothering the little brother, riding the anger, not eating, answering us rudely or doing something dangerous that we have repeated many times that cannot be done.
All of that, let's be clear, deserves that we mark a clear limit and explain to the child that we will not allow him to continue doing so. What we are not going to use is the wild card phrase "you are going to drive me crazy".
Come on, now, talk to him. As we have seen, the first thing is to stop the action, but without shouting or grabbing it violently, and, of course, without hitting or shaking it. We can tell you, depending on the specific case, that what is damaging or bothers another person or ourselves (we also have the right to be respected), that it is dangerous or that, your behavior is incorrect and he knows it. And then, calmly, explain it as soon as possible.
Surely you, readers, come up with many phrase examples what to use instead of "You're driving me crazy" and that we can include in our strategy of non-violent communication with our children. Do you share them with us?
