Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Ken John Payne, the author of Simplicity Parenting. So glad you could join us today. This week I've been thinking about communicating with kids, well, you know, what parent doesn't, right? It's just like an every hour sort of thing that we're trying to figure out on an hour by hour, day by day basis.
You know, one of the things that I was told a long time ago, and I can't even remember who told me, is that you're in real trouble when you use two out of the three stooges in any one sentence. And the three stooges being the words you, always, never. And if you use two of those in any one sentence, when you're talking to someone, particularly when the conversation is tense or problematic, you're sunk.
You know, you've done something that you probably are going to regret and it's going to send the conversation off in a difficult direction. Because think about what you're doing when you say you, always, never. The combination of those words is very fixing.
It's very accusative and it allow, it doesn't allow for much movement at all. But honestly, when you use those words, when you're talking to a kid, to a child or a teen, you're not just in trouble, you're in deep trouble because they'll fire right back at you. You know, if you say that sort of stuff to adults, they might take it and go away and think, wow, that wasn't, that's a really unpleasant person, or that conversation didn't go very well, or, you know, do they hate me? Do they not like me? Or whatever.
As adults, we can rationalize it a little bit, but kids, teenagers, children, they'll just, they'll just fire it right back at us. The problem, the problem with, with saying you, let's just sort of break it down a little bit. When you say to a child, you, it's, it's a very sharp way of speaking, particularly to little children.
And I'd suggest that we replace it with, with we, you know, with a, with a very little child, it can be a we. Now, it's not to say that the word you is banned substance, that, you know, it can be said with gentleness, softness, and that non-accusatory tone as well. Of course.
But replacing you with we, and replacing it with us, and, you know, if a child's frustrated with a project they're doing, and to say, Oh, why don't we see how we can make that better? Right? No, let's, let's see what we can do. It's not that condescending we, a child, you know, who is having a parent really move in beside them, just as you're, as you're, you know, wanting to, to help is not going to sense, you know, any kind of condescension, really more what they're, what they're going to feel is my parent is understanding that this is frustrating for me, and I'm going to move in beside them. The the now for a teenager, that that, you know, of course, is pretty much the same, but it's not, you're not going to sort of say, you know, like a, like a condescending we to a teenager, that is, that is not going to go down at all well.
But rather than say something like, you know, you, you always speak like this to me, rather than saying that, you know, the you and the always being right there, or the you never give enough space for your brother to ever have any kind of opinion, or do you see where I'm going with this? When you start, it's the you that often comes first, and then the always comes next, or the you and the never, but it starts with you. All right, as opposed to I, or for me, and for a teenager, it's really important to say, rather than, you know, you you doing that consistently, you always do it, and it just leads to trouble. Rather than that, just to just to make one of these famous I statements to say, gosh, you know, I get really uncomfortable when you do that.
That is a very different kind of comment to the you always, you never. The other piece about about always and never, let's move on from you to these other two stooges of always and never, is that it, as I mentioned, it doesn't really open up a conversation with kids to be forward moving. It gets us stuck in a cycle of conflict, because they'll deny they always do it.
They'll say, I do not always do it. Yeah, right. Whatever, like, ha ha ha, you know, if it's a little child, because they know, they don't always do that.
You know, we've got mad and we've kind of accused them of always doing it. But in our heart, we know they don't always do it. Really? Always? No, that's not true.
It can be, you know, one can replace that with often, or sometimes, you know, it might be, well, sometimes this really comes up strongly, and it's so hard for everyone. Do you see how different that is to you always? Because it's, it's, it's speaking the truth. It does quite often come up.
It just does. You know, there's, there's no kind of getting around that. But saying that this sometimes comes up, and it's, it's really hard when it does, right? That is just, it's a statement of truth.
But it's also gives the child the feeling of, of you being objective, and you're being fair. And then the never, you never, you never listen to me. Why do I have to ask you five times? You never listen to me.
Well, you know, I get it. I totally get that. What parent hasn't said something like that? But it's, again, it's fixing a situation in a box.
It's, it's, it's, you know, painting yourself into a communication corner. Because then if, if you're saying the child, you know, never listens to you, then it's almost like, why should they? If you think, if you're stating you never listen to me, well, then a child's going to say, okay, I'm not, I'm not going to listen to you. If you think I never listened to you, what's the point? I'm not going to listen.
And in that moment, it actually just calcifies, it hardens an already hard situation. Now, what happens if, if, if two of those three stooges get out of the box, and you find yourself saying it, you said it, there it is, you just said it, you always, you know, you never, okay, now it's got out of you. What do you do then? Do you, do you take a kind of a special parental flail kept to these moments and start whipping yourself? I am so unworthy, so unworthy, you know, no, no, no, no, no.
The point is to know what it is to have a really easy way to recognize you've just made a real communication faux pas. And to be able to reframe, you know, to be able to often speak about this, those of you who follow these simplicity diaries know this often comes up is to reframe and just to have the point of consciousness to know that you, you did a you always, or you did a you never. And then to just take, take a moment and say to a child, hang on.
I didn't mean that. Give me a moment. Just give me a moment.
Come back and say, okay, what I meant to say was that it really sets things off in a bad way. When, when there's that kind of talk, that's what I meant. I know sometimes that you and your brother play perfectly well together.
I know that. But what just happened, that was, and what you said, that was harsh. And I don't, I don't think it was meant that way.
Something's up. Something's bugging you or whatever it is, but you've, you've come back and reframe and the reframe, the reframing, I think begins with a, what I meant to say was what I really meant to say was what I meant to say was, and in that way, you, it, there's a, there's a quick, there's a really quick way of knowing where you're going. So if you hear yourself saying you always, or you never, that is basically asking you to cut it off right there.
Ask for a minute, go away, come back and reframe with what you are really trying to say. If you do that, and here's this last little piece of that, because if, if we do, if we do that, if you do that as a parent, your kids will pick it up. They'll start picking up your really heartfelt communication.
It's not, it's not sort of anything. It's not sort of fake communication, robotic sounding communication. It's heartfelt and kids know it.
And then when you call on them to reframe, when one of the siblings has said something really quite harsh to another, if you're reframed enough and you've gotten out of accusatory language, then they will have that kind of almost embedded within their inner being. So there are the three stooges of communication and a way to use, use it rather than beat yourself up about it. And then an idea, a solution to what you can do if a you always or a you never escapes you by reframing.
And don't forget to join us over at the Simplicity Parenting Community area. You know, there's a, as I often remind us, there's this free starter kit that you can get at simplicityparenting.com. I think it pops right up at the top of the page where you can have, you can access the community area with videos, audios, all kinds of articles, a forum where parent exchange happens. It's a wonderful place, the community area.
All right. As always, hope that was helpful and bye bye for now.
