How to speak to your child | Marissa Peer

So a child mind responds better to specific words and instructions, so they don't understand later. They do respond to positive words. You must, with children, eliminate every negative word. You're bad, you're naughty. Children can only respond to words that make pictures. The more vivid the picture, the more powerful they respond. So don't say, you're a good kid, say, you are an amazing kid. What I love about you is you've got a natural gift for science. Or what I love about you is you're so good at cooking. What I love about you is how much you love learning. It doesn't matter if you don't get great grades. You love learning. Children can only work in the present tense. They don't understand tomorrow. My little girl said, mummy, is it tomorrow today? She didn't know what yesterday, today and tomorrow was. She goes it tomorrow, now, is it tonight, today? Because they don't understand. They only understand now. That's why with a baby, when you leave the room, they think you're never coming back. And so children aren't really great at future pacing. Children can only respond to words that make pictures. The more vivid the picture, the more powerful they respond. So don't say, you're a good kid, say, you are an amazing kid. What I love about you is you've got a natural gift for science. Or what I love about you is you're so good at cooking. What I love about you is how much you love. It doesn't matter if you don't get great grades. You love learning. The more you can make the picture good. See, I have so many kids who are twins. Ago I was called twins. Twins, lunch is ready. Twins get in the car. And they had no identity. Don't do that. Don't dress your kids the same. Don't say, I love you because you're smart. Because when you label a child, you limit them, even a good label. I love you because you're beautiful kids here. And if I wasn't, you wouldn't. Don't do that. I love you because you're lovable. And when you grow up, people are going to love you. One of my clients said, I can't find love. My dad used to say to me every day, no one's ever going to love you like I do. Well, there's a program you say to your kids, you're so lovable, you're going to find so many people who love you like I love you. So a child's mind doesn't recognize neutral words. How many people say to a baby, don't touch. Then they touch. Because don is a new touch. They know what touch is. Don't touch. Don't touch. Keep touching it. Stop touching it. They can only hear the words touching it. You can say, that's very fragile and it's very important to mummy. As I say to my little girl, when you're walking across the house with a drink, I didn't, don't spill it. Oh, look, you've spilt it now. I knew it. You always spill it. I go, darling, when you look at. You got to look at the cup and not the television. And if you look at the cup while you walk, you'll keep it up, right? And then everything will stay in the cup. They understand stuff that makes a picture. Don't spill your juice. I guarantee they're going to spill it every day. You just can't stop spilling. You're just a Messy Kid. And 40 days later they go, I'm so messy, I'm always spilling stuff. What's wrong with me? You are conditioned, that's what's wrong with you. But you can be unconditioned like that. So a child mind responds better to specific words and instructions, so they don't understand later. They do respond to positive words. You must, with children, eliminate every negative word. You're bad, you're naughty. Good kids do bad things. Smart people do silly things. Say to a child, you're a great kid. Why did you do that? That's not you. You're a good kid. And they go, well, you said you liked her more than me. No, I didn't. Well, I heard that. And so if you start with, you can't do it all the time. Our kids push our buttons. I say to my daughter, you know, you're my teacher, darling. You're teaching me how to cope with someone who gets paint all over the carpet. My daughter's an artist. I'm tidy, she's messy. I wasn't designed to give birth to myself. How boring would that have been? She's nothing like me, and I'm nothing like her. We learn from each other. It didn't make our life perfect, but it made it easier. So children also respond to you. Are you. Can you always. You do you all know the story about the class that were given to a teacher and the teacher told, these kids are geniuses. We predict they're the best. And you are the genius teacher. We've done these secret tests. Genius kids, genius teacher. We know you'll get genius results. Which of course they did. And they went well, we picked you at random and we picked the kids at random. But if you believe something, it becomes true. So let's go on to the very last one. Children can't future pace. So when they're feeling sadness, it feels like it's going to be for the rest of their life. And they do this thing called tagging. I can't make my mummy happy. And it's always going to be this way. I don't have a dad. I don't have anyone to love me. It will never, ever change. We don't have enough money. It's going to be like this for the rest of my life. And so when you're working with children, I say to them something which I love. I say, look, darling, this is your life today. It's not your life. I know your dad's an alcoholic, I know your dad's in jail. I know your mom's working all the time and you live with babysitters. And I know that is your life today, but it's not your life. One day you'll have a totally different life. They're not good at future pacing. But that one expression, it's your life today. You have no friends. I mean, I worked with a little girl who had no friends and was so bullied. And now this girl has got so many friends because I always say, remember, it's just your life today and probably tomorrow, next week. And I taught her not to want friends. Because when you have a little thing on your head that says, please like me, kids don't like that. They're like, I like me. If you want to like me too good. If you don't, you're lost. And I taught her to do that, change her energy. She was inundated with friends, but they really respond to that world. And because children can't future pace, that's like when you're below two and the mother goes out, kids think she's not coming out. When you say, oh, my child's so greedy, I want it to wait to eat, they feel that they're never going to get fed again because they cannot future pace. And so when you're a therapist or a coach or people who say, you know, I wolf down donuts, I mainline jelly beans, what's wrong with me? Somewhere, somehow, their parents have made them wait and wait or remove food as a punishment, you don't have that because you're bad, or, we can't afford that. And because the child's mind thinks it's forever, they act as if it's forever, even 40 years later. So the job of the child's mind is just the same as the adult mind. It does what it thinks the child wants to do. I don't want to go to school. I'm scared of school. And now I've got all these anxiety attacks and hives and eczema. I was with a little kid who had eczema and I said, darling, I know this is a crazy question, but if the eczema had a job, what would it be? And he said, well, when I stand like that and Mummy puts the wet bandage on my eczema, he called it his sensible skin. Couldn't say sensitive. He said, when she puts the bandage on my sensible skin, she doesn't put any cream on that baby. And there it was. He told his mind, as the mother did the I want that, I want massage. I worked with another kid who had migraines at stuff. Very unusual, as if the migraine was your friend. I know that's crazy, isn't it? But he wanted to help. You went, well, when I get migraines, Mummy and Daddy stop shouting. They turn off the light and we sit in the dark until it goes away. So he'd obviously said to his mind, I wish I could stop my parents fighting. And the mind goes, let me come up with a solution. It may be crazy, it may be harmful, but the mind doesn't do, just let me have a solution. It doesn't think, is it good, bad, helpful, unhelpful, beneficial? It's just a solution. So children tag on to these painful issues of painful experiences, and you can change it by getting rid of the tagging. It'll always be this way. It will never change. It'll be like this for the rest of my life. You can help them. Incredibly, and I'm talking about adults, come into my office and go, look, I know I'm a millionaire, but I can't spend money. I'm so worried it's going to run out, because when they were a kid, they couldn't spend money. They didn't have it. So people hold on to this stuff. So I think we're just about out of time. But since we're talking about, I'm going to tell you a very funny thing that happened to me. So I work with a lot of children and there's nothing better. One little kid said to me, marissa, you are the magic person. And you stopped me wetting the bed because you did magic. But all I did was tell her that when her tummy was full of wee, wee can't say platter, that this magic Barbie light went up to her brain. And she woke up and she sat up and she ran to the bathroom. And then the next day, she called her grandmother and said, grandmother, I'm dry. And then she went to sleepovers. I excited her imagination. I did it several times in 20 minutes. That kid never wet the bed again. And she said, you did magic with me. Then I worked with another kid who said, marissa, you're so cool. You do magic. Then I worked with the big hulking kid, and he went, you're the bollocks. And I thought, isn't that interesting that the words for a man's genitals, a massive compliment for a woman, it's a massive insult. So there's your language patterns. Being the bollocks is a huge compliment, and being the female equivalent is a huge insult. So you have to make of words what you want to make of words. But if you use powerful words, you'll have a powerful life. If you understand the rules of the mind and put them into practice, you will be running the ship. Your mind is like a Ferrari, and you're like a driver trying to run that Ferrari. The subconscious is the Ferrari. The conscious is the drivers don't even know how to run this. But if you learn you can handle a Ferrari, think of your mind like a Ferrari and think of you like a hugely competent, highly skilled Ferrari driver. Take that Ferrari where you want it to go. Make your life incredible. Sam.