Words Leave Scars, Especially On Kids
By: Julie Ballantyne Brown
Tags: Students, Words, Kids, Teachers, Parenting

Think before you speak.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

I’m a middle school teacher. I’ve been a teacher for more than a decade now, including student teaching and two years of subbing. I’ve taught 3rd-8th grade as a full-time teacher, but all grade levels as a sub. I prefer teaching the older kids. (Kindergarten is not my thing. At all.) I’ve tied shoes, wiped tears, cleaned up vomit, and given more hugs than I can count. I’ve learned a lot in that time, lessons that I wanted and needed to learn and also some things that I would rather not know. Listening to a mother take a very personal phone call from her gynecologist during a conference is something that I will never be able to scrub from my brain.

Another thing about being a teacher is that kids tell you stuff. A lot of stuff. Everything, kids tell you everything. Some of it is very sweet and some is scary. Teachers are mandated reporters, so if a child discloses abuse, we are required by law to report it. Been there, done that, unfortunately. Sometimes we hear things that are not abuse, but still make our hearts ache for a student.

Today was one of those days. Out of privacy for the student, I won’t disclose exactly what they said, but it was in response to a quiz question that asked students to connect with a character in a story. The student relayed a story where one of their parents said something, probably in anger and frustration, that this student can’t forget.

It wasn’t nice, insulting, but not horribly awful. There were no names called, but what was said cut deep and has stayed with them for a long time. This student felt the need to share that with me and it struck right in the feels. I wanted to give them a hug, and I probably would have if we were actually in school. As it was, I wrote a little message to them, said a prayer, and sent good energy their way.

It reminded me of time when my own mom, totally frustrated with my snarky teenage self, I’m sure, muttered under her breath that she should never have had kids. Knowing my mom, I wasn’t supposed to hear that, but I did, and wow, did that stay with me for a long time. Kids remember that stuff. To paraphrase Dr. Phil, it takes a lot of ‘atta boys’ to cancel out one negative comment.

Think back to a time when an adult said something hurtful to you as a child. Chances are it came from a parent or a teacher. It may not be as painful now, but I’ll bet at the time that it stung. It most likely wasn’t meant to cause you life-long pain, but that may be what happened.

Now, I’m a parent as well. I know that I have lost it more than once over the years and said things that I didn’t think through that were definitely not the best word choices. I’ve tried, tried, to talk those times through with my boys and apologize for something I had said after we’ve all cooled off. But I know from experience that those words hurt and I replay those moments in my head, even though they’re from years ago. I worry that I spoke to my kids too harshly when I couldn’t take it any more with life, my incredibly stressful job, my frustration, or kids’ (my own kids’ and students’)disrespect, for one more moment. I was, and am, an adult. We’re supposed to temper our reactions to kids when they act up, but it doesn’t always work that way. We get angry, we respond to kids’ behavior. Let’s face it, sometimes it’s a lot. Kids can definitely be a lot at times. More than a lot. But we have to pull it together enough to not cut them to the quick.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t say anything at all to kids when they are doing something wrong, but our choice of words is important. Statements like, “You’re worthless”, “You never do anything right”, or “Why can’t you be like____?” are not helpful in the least. I have never said any of those particular things, but it blows my mind how quickly we adults want to use harmful words when kid misbehaves. They need correction, to be sure, but that correction doesn’t mean that it’s okay to hurt them, with our words or otherwise. Sometimes that means we need to take a break, walk away, and breathe, and think about how to handle the situation.

The lesson here? Let’s be more mindful about what we say to children. They’re listening, even when it seems like they’re not or that it doesn’t bother them.

Words are important.