Sticks and Stones

>Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. This is how I grew up. As did my parents. And their parents, and their parents. In English at least, this saying has been around for over *a hundred and fifty years* and is the child's response to name calling and bullying. Yet today, words are so incredibly hard that they should be feared more than sticks and stones, as words apparently do much more damage. > Punched in the face by a sound. ---  --- > Seems incredibly silly, doesn't it? Words are important, but not nearly as important as action. And when it comes to learning, *words are not enough* for most people. Otherwise, learning to do anything just requires reading a book on the process, and you are good to go. Like getting an upload from the matrix on how to fly a helicopter. But, for those who have ever read a book on surfing and then tried it and fallen and fallen and fallen - it is pretty clear that words are not enough. And this goes for a lot of parenting also, where these days, parents have conversation with their children on what they consider right and wrong and how to behave, expecting that the children will learn from the conversation alone. This is *highly* unlikely. Which also means that conversation to correct behaviour, are *not likely to work* either. It is easy to cover a lot of ground and reasoning with words, but rather than shifting behaviour, it likely has the opposite effect, where there is too much information to be actionable. The lecture might make the parent feel better, but the only punishment for the child, is having to listen to it. At some point, there has to be *practical punishment.* Just like learning to surf requires getting on the board, paddling out to the back and then trying to catch a wave, all behavioural change requires *behaviours to be changed.* Seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? But, conversations are rarely enough to actually shift behaviour adequately. Yet, think about the rhyme above, which mentions physical and verbal interactions, as well as implies *emotional resilience.* For a parent in many western countries, corporal punishment has been off the table for decades, and now words are taken off the table, so what is left? > Emotional abuse? "No TV for a week!" Is that a better lesson than a smack on the ass? It would seem so, right? but what the child is learning is about loss of something that isn't likely connected to the event itself. They are also learning to build a scarcity mindset, and to covet the entertainment of the TV as something to protect. Are they really the right lessons? > I don't think so. We know a lot about learning and a lot about habit forming, and none if it says that a conversation is enough to break our bad habits and change our behaviour. It is all about setting up the environment to make it easy to do, as well as ensuring that it is practiced, and repeated, over and over. Not repeating the conversation, repeating the *action* over and over. The punishments today aren't repeating the correct actions, they are repeating the actions, thoughts and feelings that lead to a lot of emotional instability and weakness. > A smack was probably more effective, and less damaging. *Strange, isn't it?* The intention might have been to do less harm, but it could end up doing more harm through displacement. It is the bath, by pouring the water onto the floor. The bath is empty, but now there is a much larger problem than a tub full of water. And I think that because we have tried to "protect" people from any kind of harm, which sounds like a good thing, we have created an environment where everything is harmful, which isn't ideal. This article actually has nothing to do with parenting, it is about learning. Learning is always an uncomfortable process, because it is about doing something we are not used to do, or finding out about something we had no idea about earlier. It is automatic discomfort, until we are comfortable knowing *and* doing it. Words might help us understand the conceptual level, but they don't give us the practice to understand the practical application of the concept. We need to get our hands dirty, we need to feel it. My daughter constantly has bruises and scrapes on her legs and arms. Not because of punishment, but because she likes to climb trees and jump around in the playground equipment. These are little, *painful* lessons that help her understand how her body works, and what she needs to do to avoid getting hurt next time. It teaches her how to use her body effectively. Similarly, our mental and emotional parts need to get scraped and bruised on a wide assortment of "trees and equipment" in order for us to build up the *knowledge and experience* to truly understand what we are doing, how we are doing it, and whether we should try to do it another, more effective way. >Getting hurt by words? *What have you not learned about yourself?* Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ] --- **Be part of the Hive discussion.** - Comment on the topics of the article, and add your perspectives and experiences. - Read and discuss with others who comment and build your personal network - Engage well with me and others and put in effort **And you may be rewarded.** ---