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“We don’t know what to do. My child is rude and aggressive. This is becoming her regular behaviour.”

This is a common problem faced by parents these days. Parents continuously want to seek external help and counselling on how to deal with such situations. May be not the cause of this.

My article is all about this problem statement.

Did you know that children speak the language their parents do. So, how is your language as a parent?

The more the children are surrounded by conversation, the better will they acquire the language skills. This process begins at home, right at their infancy. As the child grows, the process also grows. With time, the spectrum of enculturation widens and social interaction broadens.

The world outside home teaches the child too many perspectives of language. The typical categorisation observed is decent or indecent in language. But no matter which pole of the speech or the spectrum is the child inclining to; it can always be filtered and rectified by parents.

Are you rude and aggressive in your language?

But what if the parents themselves are on the negative end of the spectrum? To put it simply, as parents, how do you express your varied emotions through speech in front of the child?

As parents, think through this. Do you criticize constructively? Do you use mellowed words, tone and voice when angry? Do you have words of appreciation in your speech for family members? Is your speech kind enough? Do you feel that teaching good language is solely school’s responsibility?  Do you bad-mouth about others unrestricted? Do you use abusive words in front of children? Does your normal conversation have slang as a part of it? Do you spell out ‘bad words’ just like that? Do you think that using foul language when kids are not around is okay?

Think, think, think!

Think not twice, but multiple times before taking out words from your mouth; especially when your children can hear you.

As a communication trainer I have seen quite many cases where parents accuse the school, school blames the parents and the game continues. Irrespective of the efforts that a school makes in developing a child’s language, the tone and texture of the speech will definitely be inherited from home.

J. lee and N.K Bowen (2006), in their article ‘Parent involvement, cultural capital, and the achievement gap among elementary school children’ , mention that parents with variation of backgrounds contribute to different types of children educational involvement because they are not the same in terms of types of behaviors, attitudes, social conditions, perceptions and educational attainment.

All these factors together work upon the language clarity, tone, usage of words and overall speech. Every parents wants their child to ‘Speak well’, but many-a-times forget that the child derives the goodness of language from the way parents speak.

So how to help your child out of her language aggression?

Language and Speech affect the self-esteem of the child extensively.  Self-esteem is a value that is instilled by the immediate environment of the child, which is home. The tool with which all the members remain connected is the language, and thus it needs to be pristine for the child to gain confidence in speaking and keeping self-esteem high.

So, parents, let’s choose wisely what to say and what not to; how to speak and how not to. The impact that your language has on your child’s cognitive, emotional and intellectual development will be lifelong.

As parents, let’s speak the way we want our children to speak! And we will no longer need to ponder on what to do when our child is rude and aggressive.

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