A Little Thought About Speaking to the Little Ones

When we "baby talk" to our children we actually take away their feeling of being able to be mature (for their age) and promote their feeling instead in a constant state of babyishness, and in fact may unconciously feel that the adult may not care for them unless they are a baby. Baby is the role they may play or fight fiercely against. We as admiring adults with our little ones may think that this is cute, but this habit of speaking undermines a child's self-image and self-worth as individuals desiring to grow up and impress the world with who they can be, and it can also make them unreliable, unresponsive and passive-aggressive towards your direction further down the line. This aggressiveness develops when the child is young and seems to be manifested as the child gets to be a little older, but the root may be that they are not held in a proper view from their adult caretakers.

All children need the adult's clear direction and defined boundaries, for these makes the child feel safe and secure. These are positive, but the child is also seeking the space in the adult's view where they also feel safe to grow and become a mature person like the one they are following. Their desire when they have the clear boundaries and direction is to become something that gains your respect and admiration. Our words and the tone of our words can truly give nurture their own self-respect through our respectful notice. These positive affirmations work especially if we don't overpraise them, rather positively notice them and when warranted compliment them. We are not trying to manipulate by our compliments here. We are trying to appreciate who they are and who they would like to be. Sure we influence, because we are the adult, but not control and thus miss the beautiful person they are meant to be by putting it in some idealistic box created out of our own desires and imaginations. When we go too far with our compliments then our words are not weighty in their ears and hearts for they didn't have to do much to earn them. They need to earn them, and then they will feel the warmth of those compliments warming the depths of their heart.  They will experience much more security in you and in themselves.

Each child deserves his/her parent's delight in them, and also seeks to earn your respect and earnest praise. I hate baby talking, except when given to babies, for babies seem to both love and need that. As the child grows, even while a baby, we also should grow in our appreciation of the child where they are. We need to restrict our speaking carelessly, with reckless or selfish emotion or intent and pause and reflect on the person these words are forming.  Our words are powerful to a child, and that power will break or ruin by its harshness or its spoiling, or that power will help the child grow by the strength and direction of those words.  May our little words have much reward.