Six Critical Messages for Children to hear from us:
I believe in you
I trust you
I know you can handle this
You are listened to
You are cared for
You are very important to me
Barbara Coloroso
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Barbara Coloroso is my parenting hero. Her style provides clear respectful boundaries that allow children to explore their own unique style while understanding their parents put down common sense limits out of love. Her approach has a few concrete strategies that are wonderful, but mostly she imbibes a spirit towards children that is contagious and inspiring.
My one beef with her is that she implies that parents and teachers need to give these messages to children…and then she leaves it at that. As a parenting/teaching guru, I suppose that makes sense. But don’t we adults need to hear these messages from our partners, our BFF’s, our bosses and so on?
Absolutely–children need to hear these messages from their parents and teachers. But adults benefit from hearing these messages from those that are important to them as well…
The last time someone close to you complained about their job or their bad knee, how did you respond? Did your response imply the “Big 6” as above? Or did you focus on a solution that skipped past what they were saying, tell a similar story of your own that focused away from what was said, or in some other way minimized what they said?
I’m not sure it’s so important to say the six critical messages word for word. It seems to me that living the spirit and attitude of them as we speak and relate to others would make the world a different place.
The big 6 critical messages aren’t just for children…they’re for all of us. Let’s give them to the ones around us in our lives.
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