162. Reduce Hurtful Words Being Said | Parenting When You Feel Hurt by What Your Kids Say

If you've noticed a heavy amount of hurtful words being said in your home, especially from your kids, they're saying things like, I hate you, you're the worst mom, you're the worst brother. And it just feels heavy and intense and honestly defeating. I would love to share my experience with you and drastically reducing the amount of talk like that coming from my kids and where I had to take a serious look in the mirror to realize where some of this was totally coming from me and having the courage to face that ownership and accountability so that way I could see the changes that I want to make and see the way to make those changes. If we avoid looking at our part in the home and the influence that we have, and it feels too painful to look at that. So we just keep saying, well, they say hurtful things, they say the worst things. They're saying, I hate you and I can't control what they say. If we choose to take honestly the role of the victim of in this, we're going to miss out on our opportunity to better guide our kids to powerful and effective forms of thinking and communication that resolves tension, conflict, and problems that they may be facing while keeping us as a calm authority in that role of leadership for them to trust and follow after. And it can feel painful, it can feel difficult to do, especially as I share this story with you. It was definitely hard for me to face and I did feel so guilty for a short period of time, which is completely healthy. Guilt is just letting us know, hey, you strayed away. You strayed off course with who it is that you want to be. And it's time to recalculate, it's time to refocus. And that's personally the way that I love to look at guilt. It's like a radar going off, a siren going off, saying like, hey, you're nearing the cliff, you're about to fall. Now's a good time to turn back. That's how I look at guilt. And then getting back onto that path of the mom that I want to be. And sometimes things feel like they move at a really quick pace. I have four young children, seven, five, three and one. And I want to give the best of me to each of them and. And each of them needs something slightly different from me at different times. So it can be. It can be a little. Plus, obviously, the other circumstances. We've got marriage, we've got work, we've got our own health, we've got our own ideas and dreams and relationships and all the things right. I Totally, I totally get that. So the reason why this came to a head for me was my 3 year old was saying I hate you a lot. As soon as something kind of went amiss for him and there was hurt involved or an upset and a disappointment involved, he would go to this extreme end in my perspective, an extreme end of hurtful communication. You're the worst. I hate you. I'm never gonna play with you again. It my. My 3 year olds also watched his brothers go through these phases. So while my two older boys never talked like this at three, my three year old is watching a seven and five year old communicate and how they communicate when they feel hurt. So I just look at it as he has more examples and more diversity than my two boys had before him. Like my, my first had less exposure, less diversity to language like this and options like this than my third son has. And I might see it happen even sooner with my fourth because he's been able to see and watch and I already see how this is true with like hitting for example, or that reactivity that can happen with my 3 year old. And obviously it's developmentally appropriate. It's so developmentally appropriate for him to just express in the way that he knows how to express, which is limited because he's only three and he's so much in his nervous system and his emotions that logically and intellectually there isn't this like delay in cell and to practice self control before making a decision. Right. There's impulse controls very low. That just is the name of the game. Like that is just it. And I personally have. It's helped me to view these things in a way that I'm so grateful it happens early on and it happens so repeatedly and consistently because it gives me more and more and more opportunity to address it and handle it in a way that I love and to teach them even faster. Rather than wishing these days away, wishing these hard moments away, I look at it as opportunity. Here's my opportunity to teach them what they can do when they feel upset if they're around me or away from me and equip them, empower them and share so much of what I love with them. I look at it as opportunity. So this came to a head though with my 3 year old. He was saying I hate you a lot and saying hurtful things and it just felt really heavy and I was feeling pretty much at the end of my rope about it. And I love this saying that if you're at the end of your rope, put down the rope. Stop tracking things by a rope. That is. That is finite. It has an ending. There's only so much that you have when you are infinite. You have an infinite capacity to. To shift your perspective, to try something new. An infinite amount of possible options available to you in ways that you can handle things. So that was definitely my shortcoming, was seeing my capacity as limited rather than infinite and expansive and staying in that opportunity. It was, it was just weighing on me the way that I was viewing things. And it did feel like everything that I was trying wasn't working. I. It just. Nothing was working. And it's just kind of experiencing that frustration while at the same time knowing, like, deeper in my heart than this surface level disappointment or defeat. Deeper in my heart, I knew something will work. Something will register with him better than what I'm doing. Something will click more effectively than how I'm posing this to him right now and my response pattern to his hurtful language. Something will work better than what I'm doing. And it had been like several, several, several months of this happening. And then we were finally on a family walk, which this happened over summer, and it has just still stuck with me. It was such an important lesson for me to learn. And we were on family walk and my son got upset with me. And I honestly forget why. It was something in my mind, small, like, just really, just, it doesn't matter. Like, it really just didn't matter. Obviously it mattered to him because he felt extremely upset by my answer. But it was just one of those things of like, ride your bike on the sidewalk. You know, just something where it's like safety, clarity. I. I said what I meant the first time. I honestly loved the way I said it. And he felt disappointed in the answer and right to that, I hate you. And he does that. And he's riding his bike on the sidewalk. And I just stopped. I stopped right there on the sidewalk. And his. On. He's on his bike just a little bit in front of me, a little strider bike. And he turns back and sees me. And I just let myself feel hurt by what he said rather than feeling angry and posing myself as this big, strong, inc. Invincible mom. Like, I always have it together. I always have it figured out. You can't. You can't hurt me, you can't touch me. I'm indestructible, right? Instead of like keeping my composure in a. In the typical way of thinking of composure, I hope that when I say keeping my composure, you're imagining more of like shoulders down and back, head up tall, clarity in your eyes. You. You meet them in that eye contact, and you look completely stronger and bigger than whatever it is they just said to you. Like this idea of the words falling flat at your feet. And you take on this posture of, oh, I've got this. I am the one in charge. I am the one in control. I am the one of the authority and the leadership in this relationship and in this situation. And that's usually the way that I would best describe how I. How I present myself to my kids. When they treat me unkindly, that is. That's how I present myself. And it just kind of struck me in that moment that sometimes there's. There's so much nuance in parenting and motherhood sometimes when we carry ourselves that way, it's really hard for our kids to comprehend and how much their words can hurt other people. How do your kids know that their words, I hate you. You're the worst. I'll never play with you again. How do they know and get to learn that their words actually impact others and they carry a meaning to them, and it's important. It's so important to be responsible and in control of what you say. How do they learn that, though, if we never look hurt by what they said, we always look strong, we always look put together, we always look bigger than. We always look composed. How do they learn that it broke our heart if we don't look brokenhearted? And that was kind of the thought that came to me in that moment. It literally stopped me in my tracks on the sidewalk. How will he know that these words hurt my heart if I just say it hurts my heart without allowing him to witness what it looks like for someone to have a broken heart and to have a heart that's hurting. Visuals are so powerful for our kids. What we show them matters more and impacts them deeper than what we tell them. The way we show them love matters more than saying I love you. How we show them that we trust them hits them deeper and creates an understanding. Deeper than saying, I trust you. What are you doing to show them you trust them? What are you doing to show them you love them? What are you doing to show them that what you think so highly about them is true? That they're courageous, they're kind, they're friendly, they're confident, they're creative, they're resilient, they're persistent, they're patient. All the things that you want them to believe are true about them. In what ways are you showing that? And I. I so deeply believe just through my own work over the years, the last, gosh, eight years now of really focusing on myself and what I'm choosing to think about people, how I'm, how I'm treating people, and what justification I would want in my life that would make those thoughts and behaviors and feelings towards others okay, which the answer for me is none. I want no justification in my life that would allow my negative thoughts and hurtful thoughts and rude behavior and, and just heavy emotions to validate those things and to keep them around in me. I would rather find the perspective and experience the healing and the forgiveness that frees me from such things and improves my thoughts and my emotions and my behaviors towards others. It makes me a more selfless, service oriented, kind hearted person. That's who I want to be. Even if someone else mistreats me, even if I have valid reason, solid ground to stand on for cussing someone else out, which totally would have been my go to 10 years ago. For all the things that I've done in my life. I, I can look at each one and all, all the hurtful things I've done in my life, the hurtful things, the reactive things, the angry things, I can look at each one and be like, dang. There was, there was an incredible opportunity there to exercise discipline and love and selflessness and, and self control and I missed it. I just let it go and I, I fed into the fire. I, I literally made the problem bigger. And while I can see why I did everything that I did, I don't. It's not a shame thing or even a guilt thing at this point. It's just, it feels so empowering and it strengthened my faith in remarkable ways to know literally because of my life experience proving this to be true. Anyone can do anything in my life and I still get to decide what I do next. There it what else? What else feels that freeing like that to me, that's exactly what Jesus died for me to have the opportunity to do this freedom in life, to adhere to faith, walk in his path, walk in his light, share that light with others. Even if someone could say, oh my gosh, they just totally mistreated you, why are you still being generous? Why are you still being kind? Why are you still being selfless? Why are you still praying for this person that just mistreated you? And it's like, well, that's just what I'm called to do. And I have, I have the freedom to do that. I have the freedom to still be kind. When someone else chooses to say something hurtful, say Something mean project the way they feel. And in, in the sharing of that, that experience and walking to this path of kindness and forgiveness and softness over the years, which is totally in many ways opposite of who I was before motherhood and what I grew up with and those, those circumstances and examples, I feel so grateful that I have like a polar opposite life experience. I know the difference between the two and that that keeps me choosing kindness and Jesus over and over and over again because I know the difference of the two. And this is absolutely lighter. I won't say it's easier, it's absolutely lighter than taking the road of anger and grudges and victim mentality and enemies and all the things. So this coming to, to back to our point of resolving the heavy hurtful words that are being said by your kids. How, how can we lessen that experience? How can we work on the resolve of it? This is what worked fantastically in my home. Understanding that hurt people hurt people. So when my 3 year old might quickly go to some of the most hurtful words he has learned and he has no idea really what they mean or the severity of them, he's just heard them from other kids, neighbors. I mean my, my home's always full of kids. So there's lots of diversity, there's lots of influence and I love it. I love the diversity. I believe diversity is excellent for my kids and it does create some earlier on parenting opportunities and challenges. You could say, well, since I know hurt people, hurt people. When my 3 year old says something hurtful, it's because he's hurting. That's it, that's it. My three year old feels hurt, so he says something hurtful. And this is, this is what he knows to be hurtful. And it is an opportunity for me to teach what he could do instead. However, how is that lesson going to go if I look so angry? Honestly, a lot of times in this, as the hurtful words felt a little bit heavier and heavier and the frequency of them seemed to be occurring more and more and I was feeling defeated. I was feeling so frustrated and disappointed and low about it. Like I felt like my hope was dimming and I'm a really hopeful person. I always have vision and I felt it dimming. I felt myself getting so consumed in this story of hurtful language and this narrative and that disappointment followed and I once. It clicked for me on the sidewalk and it stopped me in my tracks. How will he know his words hurt if I look angry? How will he know that I feel brokenhearted unless I show it I look so angry. What does that teach? What does that teach your kids when they say something hurtful and you look so angry about it? Your face scrunches up and your shoulders get higher and your eyebrows cinched together and you just look so angry? What does that teach your kids about hurtful words? If our kids learn by what we show them. You just showed them the words are strong. The words are, gosh, they're the. They're the invincible, they're the everlasting, they're the. They're the. Strong is like, the best way for me to describe it. They think those words are strong, they're mighty, they're invincible. And so they choose them more, especially when they're feeling hurt. They want to choose the words that feel strong when they feel hurt. It's like a, I'm going to put on my armor now. And we've done that. I've done that. I have shown my kids that I hate you. You're the worst. I'll never play with you again. Is strong. Whenever I looked angry about it, and letting that kind of sink in for me over the last several months has really changed my posture. In the moments that hurt is hurtful, things are being said to allow myself to look hurt. So on the sidewalk, I stopped, and he looks back at me. And I had gotten down to my knees, and I put my head down, just truly looking disappointed. And the longer I thought about what he had said, I hate you, my eyes started to well up with tears, and I genuinely felt sad underneath. So anger is a secondary emotion. So every time that I feel angry by what my kids are saying, my anger just came up to protect and guard something that feels more vulnerable. And for some people, joy, gratitude, faith, delight, that feels very vulnerable for them. So when they're in environments and situations where there is a tremendous amount of joy, gratitude, delight, and faith, they get angry because something about that doesn't feel safe for them. So they protect it with anger. And then in other popular examples, it's with hurt. When you feel hurt by something, you'll guard it with anger. So if your kids say something hurtful to you and you look angry about it, you're protecting yourself, you're guarding yourself. It's not the proper response to teach your kids the impact of their words. That would resolve the problem itself. If you showed them how much their words hurt, how much it hurts to hear that, how much it hurts to believe that even for a second how that hurts you, they would. They would then understand because you showed them. You showed Them. You softened your posture, you got down lower. Your eyes welled up with tears because that's how it felt. Your head tipped down a little bit lower. And you gave them the opportunity to experience what that looks like. Because they do not understand when you just say it, hey, that hurts mommy's feelings. Well, if you look angry when you say it hurts your feelings, they still interpret it to be strong. It's invincible. You're protected, you're guarded. No, we've got to put the show before the tell. It's show and tell, right? You gotta put the show before the tell. Show them. Show them what a hurt, what a broken heart looks like. Show them what hurt feelings looks like. And then tell them, then tell them about it. Give them, Give them the real example. Help walk em through the process with your words. And my son came back to me. So on the sidewalk, he says, I hate you. I get down low. I stopped right there in my tracks and I got it. I got it. In that moment. How will he ever know that his words hurt if I always look angry when he says it? Anger looks very different than hurt. It's guarding hurt, but it looks strong. It looks so protected. And you're invincible. And that's just not the reality of it. And it's a terrible message to be sending our kids about in response to the behavior we'd like for them to correct because they feel stronger with that behavior. They don't understand that it's okay to just express the hurt. Especially if you're never just expressing the hurt. Softening, experiencing that sadness, that disappointment, that brokenheartedness, experiencing that in the moment. Gosh. Why do. Why do you think. Why do you think if you struggle with yelling, why do you think you yell so much? It's secondary. There's all these. All these little infractions of hurt coming upon you, raining upon you sometimes, in some days, depending on how many children you have and the circumstances and experiences of the day. There's so many times you felt hurt by something and yet you refused to feel it. You kept marching on, carrying on, well, I'm just gonna put my shoulders up a little bit higher. I'm gonna scrunch my face a little bit tighter. I'm gonna say what I have to say a little louder, a little stronger. I'm going to talk a little faster. Yeah, okay. What does that teach? It certainly does not teach your kids that they can even have the opportunity to help you, to help their mom feel warm and welcomed and accepted and invited. They don't even see the opportunity to do that for you, because all the anger's in the way, and that's where yelling's coming from. You don't yell because you run out of choices. You yell because you ran out of tools. And this is a tool to express a brokenhearted. To express a sadness is a tool. It is. It is a real strategy. It is a real experience for you. And I did that for my son. He came back on his bike, and he still looked all angry, like his eyebrows were scrunched together. He had that mean look on his face. And he comes up to me, and he stops his bike right in front of me. And I'm. I'm down on the sidewalk, and I was looking down, remember? So he didn't see my face. And at this point, I had tears in my eyes, and they had begun to roll from my cheeks, down my cheeks. And I felt that way so genuinely. That is, there was no forcing myself to cry and make a scene. It's just authentically, I felt hurt. And since all the other ways that I had tried to teach up to this point obviously hadn't worked. I'm gonna try this. What do I have to lose? I'm gonna try this. So I look up at him really slowly. I picked up my head, and I let him see that I felt hurt. And in this, his face will forever live in my memory. It is, like, ingrained in my memory. His face immediately softened, immediately softened. His shoulders came down. He got off of his bike. And he comes up to me. He puts his little hands on both on my cheeks, one hand on each cheek. And he looks at me, and he tilts his head to the side. And he just. And he just says, I'm so sorry, Mama. And I told him, in that moment, when you say, I hate you, my heart hurts so bad. And this is what it looks like when my heart hurts. Sweetheart, I love you. I want to keep you safe. I want to play with you. I want to hold you. And when you say, I hate you or I'll never play with you again, mommy does feel so sad. When there's a problem, I want you to tell me how you feel. And his eyes were welling up with tears just like mine. He completely matched my emotional state. I mean, and he started crying, too. And he said, I will never say I hate you ever again. Well, I knew that wasn't true. It was sincere. He. He does want to try to do that. I just don't ever expect perfection from my kids. I don't expect them to keep promises that they make in such a good heart and good spirit, where I know, like, you got. You know, how. How are you gonna keep a promise that you don't know the commitment to it? And how would you know the commitment to it when you're so young? Many adults make promises that they don't keep because the commitment to it and promises like that, it's like you're just asking. You're asking for temptation to show up into your life, for taunting and for deception to appear just to get you to break the promise. So anyway, I. He would say it again at some point, and it still felt like a breakthrough, like we were finally really on the same page. We really understood each other. And that's what I wanted to encourage from this episode is let your kids see that you feel hurt. Stop guarding yourself with something mean to say back to them. Stop protecting yourself with this arms of a loud voice that talks really fast and you can fit all the mean words and go like this and talk really loud, and you can be louder than them and you can get them all to shut up because you can scare them. Like, wow, can you just let yourself feel hurt? Can you be a big enough person to just feel hurt right now? That's the question. And that is my position every single day as a mom. Can I be a big enough person to just feel hurt right now? Because the only times that I really step out of alignment as the mom that I want to be is when I just forget that. I forget that it takes a really big person to just feel hurt without the act of hurting someone, someone else, without the act of making it worse, creating divide, pushing other people away without the act of that. Can I just be a big enough person to feel hurt right now and express that hurt and betray that hurt appropriately in this setting? A big enough person to do that, and the answer's always yes. When I remember the question, when I remember to ask myself, could I be a big enough person, just feel hurt right now? The answer's always, yes, always. And since then. So it's been about six months since my son and I had that experience. And I promise you, the amount of hurtful interactions where words like that are thrown around has decreased by 90%, maybe 85% anywhere. That. That is what I would. I'd put my hand on that. Like, it's between 85 and 90% decrease in the amount of hurtful things said. And I know he remembers that moment too, because I look, I'll. It's been over time, right? It takes practice. Everything That I teach you takes repetition, takes practice, takes real sincere commitment and involvement and engagement and it's all for the better. There's such great fruits for these seeds and you still gotta plant em, you still gotta water them, you still gotta show up and tend to them. And then those fruits are so sweet. Over this though, it's a, it's an accumulation of interactions together where he has seen hurt repeatedly exposed to him. So if you're someone listening to this that's been quick to anger, to guard yourself, defend yourself and, and seem all strong when, when someone says something hurtful to you, it's going to take a little bit of time and repetition to change the emotional atmosphere, to change the predictability of what they're expecting you do next. I mean, you got to humanize yourself again. All of that anger, all of that, that armoring up and, and stronger, louder, faster words, it dehumanized you to your kids. I strongly believe that that's what parents are doing. They're dehumanizing their kid, their themselves with their kids. And their kids view them as someone that is just doesn't ever feel sad. They don't understand what it's like to feel the way their kids feel because their kids aren't dehumanizing themselves. They're not desensitized. They're still feeling sad, they're still feeling hurt, they're still feeling jealous, they're still feeling disappointed, they're still feeling angry. And when all of those things, when they're expressed is met with armored up anger, when do they get to see you sad? When do they get to see you with a broken heart where you show them what it looks like for someone to have a broken heart. We are doing them an extreme disservice when we armor up with anger. And we want emotionally intelligent children that yes, are resilient and know how to persevere. And all that comes from sharing in those experiences with them. So I want, I want to encourage you from this episode is to recognize that every time something hurtful is set in your home, you have a true opportunity to express hurt. And how will your kids. Let's really think about the position our kids are in. They're so new to this life, they're so new to this world. I'm 31 and I feel like I'm so new here. I mean, with each passing year I realize how much I don't know how new I am. Like, wow, this is why we need each other. This is why we need each other. Because no single human's gonna get it all figured out in their one lifetime. We need each other to learn from, to be able to fast track some. Some development, some learning, some teachings. We need. We need each other for that. And our kids are in a much more challenging position than we are in terms of that. They have less experience than us. They have less community, connection, control than we do, autonomy than we do. So they're just working with what they've got. So the more we soften ourselves to that perspective of they're doing the best they can to their mental and physical capacity, they're just working with what they have. What more can I give them that would help them do this better? I can give them a real display of sadness. I can give them a real portrayal of a broken heart. I can let them in on these experiences where they feel accountable to what they're doing. They start to feel a conviction and a commitment to be someone that is there for others, that lifts others up. We want. We all want that. You and I want that too. Of course kids want it. We all want that. It's just letting go and putting down those walls. And that anger feels so terrifying for most adults that they will not do it. So our best bet is to work on you and I and then pass that down to our kids. And the more we can get our kids to do that, to display their own hurt rather than armoring it up with anger. Just to show that the first time you feel hurt, let's just feel hurt. Can we be a big enough person to just feel hurt right now? Yes. The answer is yes. So steadfast, friends, steadfast. You need opposition, an opportunity to express your hope, your faith, your vision in this life in order to be steadfast. You cannot be steadfast without challenge. You need challenge to know that you are steadfast. So when you're faced with a challenge today and your kids say something hurtful, remember, you are steadfast. That's why the challenge is here. So go. Go feel sad. Just go feel that broken heart. Feel that sadness. Let them see it. They learn through what we show them more than what we tell them. Telling is fantastic when there's enough to show to back it up it. I just want us all to feel encouraged to do that. It has truly been such a beautiful way to resolve hurtful styles of communication in. In my home and to create a real softening and room for everyone to breathe where it slows everything down. And sadness has a beautiful way of doing that. Sadness has a beautiful way of slowing things down. It's like anger speeds things up and sadness slows them down. And obviously there's a lot of. A lot of emotion in between there that can be extremely helpful. I just wanna encourage you that it's okay to feel sad. And your kids would actually greatly benefit from you expressing that in authentic and healthy ways. And it would do a lot for you, too. So I believe in you. I'm encouraging you. Motherhood is meant for you. You are made for motherhood, and I will see you real soon.