“What’s Wrong With You?”

Today, I’d like to talk to you about the connection between language & raising consciously aware children.

The other day I was pushing my 2 ½ year old grandson down Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side of New York. Next to a day care facility, I watched a mom turn to her son (I’m speculating he was about fours old) bend down into his face and scream, “What’s wrong with you?” The little boy cowered!

My body tensed. I wanted to tell her, “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

We are not inherently born broken and needing to be fixed!

We’ve inherited this question and ignored the devastating consequences arising from it. We’ve been taught to believe there is something wrong with us!

Have you ever asked yourself, “What’s wrong with me?”

It’s a disempowering question to ask oneself, as it implies you are broken and not good enough! Humans are not born broken. We are unique and look at the world through unique lenses. We later do our best to conform to the herd and when there is a disconnect between our individual view point and the herd or others’s expectations of us, we tell ourselves, “There must me something wrong with me!”

We, as adults, then seek Self Help Books, therapy, counseling, looking to discover “What’s wrong with us?” What if there is nothing “wrong” but our limited viewpoint of the world and how the world is “supposed to be.”

I believe, most parents are striving for ways to provide their children with the things that they wanted for themselves; to be better understood, to have more compassion, to have had someone who heard and understood them; someone who gave them space “to be”. Yet, here we are, perpetuating the cycle through habitual language patterns and unconscious awareness of the impact our words have on ourselves and our children.

How many parents were yelled at by teachers and parents with the unanswerable question, “What’s wrong with you?” Really, nothing is wrong with us.

The idea that we are flawed and imperfect has been sold to us, and now we are selling this to our children; those little people, born precious and beautiful at birth.
When exactly did something become, “wrong with them?” and by whose standards?

Language and thought are inextricably connected. Language creates worlds. Language creates identities. One of the best gifts you can give yourself and your child is to pay attention to the words you use. We repeat the language of our ancestors. In conscious parenting, we become aware of our own language patterns so that we can stop perpetuating the feeling in a child that they’re wrong or have done something bad when they may have just dropped the crayons on the floor or spilled milk on a table.

Remember, your child will do what you do and say what you say.

the next time you find yourself about to lose it with your child, stop, breathe and get present to whether you’ll use this moment to gain conscious awareness over your own behavior and change the world for yourself and your child or resort to the easier patterns and habits of the historic past.

What if you asked yourself first, “What would it take to respond with equanimity and emotional intelligence?”

Your word is your wand and the Universe and others in it will respond accordingly.

For more ideas and strategies to use with your children to help raise conscious awareness, develop intuition and psychic abilities, check out my book, Children Who Know How to Know. Children who are shut down early, will have a much more difficult time accessing and trusting their intuition. The time to make these changes is now!

After all, we want the best for our children!

“ A mind can not be independent of culture.” — Lev Vygotsky”