Monday is Parent Affirmation Day at Help 4 Your Family!- 7/2/2012- Words
Written by, Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
I recently read a book by Don Miguel Ruiz titled, The Four Agreements. In this book, the author states that one of the most important things we must all do is to “be impeccable with your words.” This week, I want us all to use this as our affirmation:
I am impeccable with my words.
When you are using this affirmation, take a moment to think about what it means. It means that we speak truthfully to and about ourselves and to and about others. When you find yourself saying out loud or internally, “I am terrible! That was awful!” STOP and remember our affirmation this week: I am impeccable with my words. Are you really terrible? Was that really awful? Or perhaps would it be more true to say that you wished you handled something differently? Look at the difference between saying you are terrible and saying you wish you handled something differently.
Many of today’s parents of younger children are familiar with the recommendation to say to children, “I don’t like what you did” instead of saying, “Don’t be bad.” When you say, “I don’t like what you did.” a child hears you tell them something about their behavior. When you say, “Don’t be bad.” a child hears you say something about your beliefs about who they are. Being impeccable with our words is so important for us and for our children. My belief is that many of us work to be flawless with our words with children while we neglect the words we say to ourselves. I really want you to stop neglecting this part! Be precise about the words you say to yourself.
This week, whenever possible, take time to examine the language you use with yourself and your child. Work to be precise rather than over generalizing. Please refrain from using this affirmation as an additional excuse to be hard on yourself. When you hear the same old language come out of your mouth that you are beginning to see is not actually accurate, gently say to yourself “I am impeccable with my words.” and correct the language you just used with yourself or with someone else.
If you are looking for the book I mentioned, you can find it by clicking on my recommended reading widget at the top left of this webpage.*
Related articles
- Parenting with Affirmations (help4yourfamily.com)
- Monday is Parent Affirmation Day at Help 4 Your Family! 6/25/2012
- Monday is Parent Affirmation Day at Help 4 Your Family! 6/18/2012
- Affirmations and the Parent-Child Well-Being (wholemeprograms.com)
*see disclaimer
Monday is parenting affirmation day at Help 4 Your Family!
From now on, Monday is going to be parent affirmation day at Help 4 Your Family. Sometimes I will share affirmations I have created and used, other times I will quote affirmations from teachers I have come to trust.
For this Monday, May 7, 2012 your parenting affirmation is:
My children give me constant opportunities to learn and grow.
Now, you know this one makes you smile, even when you are tired. I would suggest that, to make this part of your self-talk, you repeat it many times throughout the day. Say it to yourself in the mirror, and mention it to your friends in conversations.
If you have a parenting affirmation that you would like to share, please feel free to let me know. Maybe you will see it some other Monday 🙂
All the best to your family,
Kate
Parenting with affirmations
what are word for? (Photo credit: Darwin Bell)
Written by, Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
My children are learning new and wonderful things every day.
I am loving and supportive to my children.
My children are loving toward me.
As a huge fan of Louise Hay, the mother of the self-help movement, I have come to find the wonderful healing work that can be done via the use of affirmations. Ms. Hay would tell you that every statement is an affirmation. Typically we think of affirmations being statements we say to help us to feel better. I am loving and loveable is a common affirmation people try to say over and over to help change internal beliefs. But people can also say other, unhealthy or damaging affirmations, without even realizing they are doing so. I hear affirmations all the time like this, for example: everything I do turns out wrong, and it seems like everyone I love leaves me. I know it may seem simplistic to say that affirmations can change things but take a moment to see if you can remember words that may have changed your life. Hurtful words, loving words, thoughtful words, all may have played a part in helping you to form who you are.
I remember overhearing my mother say once that my sister was a smart as I was pretty. These words carried a lot of meaning for my twelve year old self. From them I deduced that my mother thought I was pretty (nice), but not that smart (ouch). While I know she would never have wanted me to feel like I was not smart and she has told me many times since that I am smart, I know that those words were powerful and impacted how I felt about myself. As parents our words are formative for our children. In the same way we can use affirmations to help us feel better about ourselves and to retrain our brains and our internal belief systems, we can use them to help our children form their own internal beliefs and set of understandings about how to feel better when life is hard.
One good introduction to affirmations for children is Louise Hay’s children’s book, I Think, I Am. In it, Hay uses child friendly language to teach children the power of affirmations. I have been using affirmations in my parenting for well over a year now, and can tell you it has made a huge difference in my children’s day to day happiness (mine as well). One thing that I think keeps people away from using affirmations is that they believe all affirmations have to be said in this nicey, nicey tone that feels syrupy and sweet. In my time using affirmations with my children, I can tell you this is absolutely not so!
My then six year old daughter, used to have reactions ranging from grumpy and reluctant to downright nasty upon waking up each morning. I actually got pretty irritated with going in to her room each morning to wake her up with a nice song only to be greeted with a moan that I needed to stop singing and demands for me to help her get dressed. However, I was determined to stay positive toward her and to try to set limits. One day, I got fed up with it and said quite firmly something along the lines of, “You know, the things you say right when you get up set the tone for your day. Do you want to wake up saying how rotten things are all the time or would you like to start your day showing love for all you have?” Here comes the affirmation, which I then stated out loud. “I am chosing to start my day happy and to be around people who are being kind to me.” Then I walked out of her room. I can assure you that I did not sound remotely close to sweet and syrupy. I also stated that I was going to take care of myself by leaving the room because I did not want to start my day feeling angry and sour. I believe my tone and questions are what caused my daughter to sit up and took notice. Within a few minutes she had dressed herself and come downstairs to tell me she did want to start her day right. Since then she has mentioned this desire several times. Sometimes in the morning when I wake her up now she still mentions that today she is going to have a happy day and I can tell you that morning wake ups have completely changed for her making our entire morning smoother for everyone.
Perhaps this sounds too simplistic. I know it’s not always so easy because I know you might tell me how your child would follow you out of the room and around the house demanding that you do such and such or this or that. Affirmations are not magical. They do not immediately change the people around you just by you saying them, however, they do help you to change your inner world and your outer world is forced to change as well. Be what I call a “broken record” with your affirmations. As your child follows you around giving you a hard time, continue to state them out loud. It can be the same one over and over again- you know, the same way you have to say “no” twenty times before they get it.
Now that you have read this, I would strongly encourage you to take a moment now to think about the affirmations you are saying to and about your own children. Would you like to change them? If so, write down what you would like to change them to. Need help finding an affirmation? Give me a try. I’ve gotten pretty good at this 🙂
For more information about affirmations, I would strongly recommend you read Louise Hay’s classic book, You Can Heal Your Life. It has been around for a while but it is actually a timeless work. No time to read? I bought it off itunes and listened to it while walking and I highly recommend this way as well. You can easily find this book by clicking on the Amazon widget link at the top right of this page. Please read my disclaimer page first.
Cover of YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE
About me
Kate Oliver, LCSW-C (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) has been a clinician working with traumatized and attachment-disturbed children for almost two decades. She is co-owner of A Healing Place, a private practice in Columbia, Maryland, since 2007.
At the beginning of her career, Kate found that while some children responded to traditional child therapy practices, there were a significant number of children who showed little or no improvement in their overall emotional well-being. This led her to seek out specialized training to learn more about attachment, the bond between parents and children, and found that by using attachment-based strategies in addition to treating trauma, even the most challenging children and their parents, saw major, life-changing shifts, not only for the children she was working with, but the parents as well.
Early in her career, Kate was privileged to work as the clinical director for Tamar’s Children, a program that took pregnant, incarcerated women from prison to a treatment facility that worked on teaching the women to bond with and attach to their babies, while also helping the women to heal their own broken attachments, and history of trauma and addiction. This program was internationally recognized for having a successful, evidence-based practice using an attachment-based model. From working with some of the most severely disenfranchised parents, Kate received important information about how to help all parents maintain a happy, healthy relationship with their children.
In 2007, Kate co-founded A Healing Place, a mental health private group practice in Columbia, Maryland, where she focuses on working with families with children who have a history of trauma and/or attachment disturbances. A board certified supervisor, Kate has been an invited presenter to teach continuing education courses for other social workers and psychologists. In her courses, Kate teaches attachment-building techniques and presents about her sub-specialty, working with families headed by gay and lesbian parents. Kate has also worked as a trainer for Building Families for Children, a therapeutic foster care agency.
Kate is a former board member for the organization COLAGE, a non-profit group that works toward community building for people with gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender parents. She is currently a member of Attachment Disorders Maryland, a group that works to educate parents and professionals about working with children with attachment related issues. She is a Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Practitioner and Educator.
Kate lives in Columbia, Maryland is the mother of two amazing daughters, the partner to a fantastic husband, and the daughter of one mother and two gay dads. She loves to read any book that crosses her path, write (of course), and she recently started dancing again, a passion she has had since her youth.
Kate can be reached by email: helpforyourfamily@gmail.com for questions or you can find her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/Help4yourfamily.
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