How to Break Your Child’s Heart Without Even Realizing It

Working with parents and kids I have seen the little ones (and older kids) totally deflate when mom or dad parents or interacts a particular way.  There are 15 arrows that always pierce the tender hearts of our kids. Let’s put these weapons down.

If you want to break your child’s heart and crush his spirit, do these 15 things: 

  1. Discipline in anger. “You are grounded for life.”
  2. Criticize rather than correct. “That’s a stupid way to solve that problem.”
  3. Lecture rather than discuss. “Blah, blah, blah…”
  4. Express unreasonable expectations.  “You are two and you need to sit perfectly still during church.”
  5. Compare one sibling to another. “Your sister was able to ______.”
  6. Bring up past failures. “Remember when you _______.”
  7. Use sarcasm. “Yah, right, you are so smart.”
  8. Kill joy. “You could have done even better if you had_______.”
  9. Shame. “You are so clumsy.”
  10. Broadcast failures. “You can’t believe what my son did.”
  11. Blame. “It’s your fault I ran the red light.”
  12. Present yourself as perfect. “When I was your age I never _______.”
  13. Steal success. “You got your talent from my side of the family.”
  14. Don’t admit wrong doing.“I’m the parent. I’m always right.”
  15. Never ask for forgiveness.  (Ditto number 13.)

As parents we typically have two goals, a short term goal (typically behavior) and a long term goal ( character building). In my parenting courses I encourage moms (and dads) to use a positive, proactive, and purposeful approach with their kiddos. Work toward training kids regarding the preferred behavior and start providing opportunities to grow desirable character traits in those moments.


Lori Wildenberg
Lori Wildenberghttps://loriwildenberg.com/
Lori Wildenberg is passionate about helping families build connections that last a life time. She is a licensed parent-family educator and co-founder of 1 Corinthians 13 Parenting. She has written 4 parenting books with Messy Journey: How Grace and Truth Offer the Prodigal a Way Home published by New Hope as her most recent. She is a parent consultant, national speaker, and lead Mentor Mom over at the Moms Together Facebook Community Page. Lori is a contributor to a number of on-line magazines. Every Monday you can find her blogging about faith and family at loriwildenberg.com. Mostly, Lori is wife to Tom and mom of four. The Wildenbergs' home is nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. A perfect day in Lori's world is a hike with her hubby, four kids plus a daughter-in-love, and Murphy the family labradoodle.

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