Would You Claim Your Own Words?

We think the children don’t listen when we speak. We talk at them and they ignore us as if we are mute. Frustration sets in and we may try raising our voices to them, with no change in reaction. Children are more aware of our words than we think.

We may think they are too young to hear or understand us. We try using big words to confuse them when we don’t want them to hear. They may pretend they aren’t hearing us. But, in fact, they rarely miss much. So many of us forget ourselves when we were that age. When our parents had visitors over, relatives or friends, they sent us out of the room because they wanted “adult time” for mature conversation.

Did we just gleefully say “okay” and go to our rooms, playing with our toys blissfully unaware that they were trying to understand and change the insanity of the world we live in? Or did we squeeze ourselves into those tiny crevices an adult wouldn’t recognize as a hiding place and cup our ears to hear better?

I will not lie. It was a personal achievement when I discovered a position where I could remain hidden yet hear the juicy words they spoke. I rarely understood what they said. However, they had to be important. If we were not able to hear, they were forbidden adult words and much more interesting to me.

Words not intended for us can have undesirable consequences in the long run. Perhaps it includes holding secrets we dare not reveal, lest we give away the fact we were listening. Or it means knowing things we are not mature enough yet to handle at our age.

I suffered for my curiosity. My ears were never meant to hear the words that someone close had an abortion. About ten years old I wasn’t really too sure what all that meant. However, I had been taught that abortion was a sin and those who had one were going to hell. To this day I can remember exactly where I was when those fateful words hit my ears, just as if it was a major world tragedy.

I was stunned into silence. My heart leaped and then fell deeply into the pit of my soul. “Abortion” was something that happened to strangers. It certainly didn’t belong within my own personal world. Immediately I offered up a prayer that it wasn’t true and for her personal soul.

Of course, I wasn’t supposed to know about it so I couldn’t ask any questions. Sex was still mostly a mystery to me so abortion meant only “killed a baby”. Too young to understand all that it entailed, I wasn’t concerned with details. Those words burned inside my mind and heart. I swallowed them but like a frog they kept coming back up to my throat.

As with most things that eat us from the inside out, this one did a number on me. Ultimately it resulted in an attempt to run away over something as simple as the fact my mother was hounding me about doing my homework. There was never an issue with me doing my homework. She may have reminded me occasionally but I never gave her problems about it. This time, however, the secret had just eaten enough of me up that I couldn’t handle the pressure. I exploded and ran away.

I didn’t go far. We had a cabin next to the house. I was going to live there, yet still be a part of the family. It sounds insane but at ten years old, you don’t really think these things through. My parents played it cool, and eventually I returned without even spending the night there. We talked and it spilled out in conversation. A world came up off my chest with my words.

Young minds such as mine was then are so impressionable. They are vulnerable. Any words spoken in front of little ones should be chosen with care. Not only are they more shocked at things that are normal to adults, but they are also likely to repeat what they hear. Any parent of a young child will tell you the embarrassing moment they realized a young one had picked up a four letter word and proceeded to repeat it for company.

Children mimic our actions and repeat our words. Even when we think they aren’t watching or listening, they are paying attention, if only part way. Just as easily as we can pick up on a choice word in a conversation at a nearby table in a restaurant and tune in, so do the children.

Do you watch the words you use around impressionable little ones? Or is your language colorful, unkind or full of gossip? Children love to tattle too. They will reveal where they heard the naughty word. Will it be from you?