Dear Ute and your readers – I’m going to promote something here that is a passionate belief of mine. Your focus is on parents being able to regulate their emotions so that there is a more empathetic or compassionate dialogue. Trust is maintained in your relationship with your child. No question that this is mega important!
Please also consider teaching your children how to emotionally self-regulate. Can you imagine how much better (easier, enjoyable, successful) their lives as adults will be if they learn at a young age to transform their anger, hurt, fears etc. into more supportive emotions and choices? I’m not saying these emotions are bad for us or for them. We need all of our emotions – they signal us that ‘something’ needs to be addressed. However, we often let these emotions hijack us. And as I mention in the IamExpat article, when this happens our creative and logical thinking becomes impaired. We then make choices that aren’t going to benefit ourselves.
I hope you’ll pass this on. As I read somewhere this week – we learn the 3 R’s at school (for your non-native English speakers these refer to reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmetic) but the 4th R – and probably the most important one – is relationships. Both with ourselves and with others. Few are learning this at school or what they are learning isn’t going to help them thrive and flourish as adults. I hope we can awaken our school’s administrators to the importance of developing our children’s EQ along with their IQ. Research has proven beyond any doubt that EQ outweighs IQ for success in the workplace.

Oh yes, I’m pretty spontaneous and regret words I said many times (well, I’m getting better at it now ;-)) but I still hope that apologies still help to soften my words. I grew up in a family where we would talk, discuss and argue a lot; where it was very normal to raise the voice etc. It’s not only the words we say, but also the way we say them. And how we deal with our reaction (apology or explanation) or the way other respond (empathy can help). – Especially patents have a tough task. We can’t always be calm and see things with that inner distance that a calm reaction would require! It’s not possible, we’re not machines 🙂 But when we realize how hurtful our words were, we have the chance to apologize etc and by doing so, be a good role model for our children. Our kids need to learn how to deal with their own raptures 😉

I’m really glad, Ariadne, that you liked this post. Yes, we should never forget the power of words… And the effect these words have not only on those who hear them but also on those who use them. It can really be detrimental and cause serious problems especially to children who usually take words from adults very seriously. – Some comments parents or adults in general make, often without thinking that they’re really hurtful, resonate like echos for the kids until they’re grown up (or forever).