Our inner voice is a valuable self-regulatory and motivational tool. It’s powerful! It helps our brain work through thoughts and also INTERNALIZE them. It can be our biggest ally or our biggest nemesis.
Our inner voice rules our:
🔸emotional expression and regulation
🔸ability to plan for communicative interaction
🔸theory of mind
🔸self-discrimination
🔸fantasy and creativity
🔸autobiographical memory
How parents develop a child’s inner voice will impact more than they think!
📌It will influence:
💭 How independent a child feels when exploring, playing, or even doing schoolwork
💭 How emotionally aware and regulated a child is/can be
💭 How resilient a child is when dealing with frustration or failure
💭 How supportive they are to themselves while doing hard things
💭 How they think of themselves in the family
🤔Our inner voice is made up of all of the ideas we have attached to ourselves. From how we behave to how others feel about us.
😓When we had a positive picture painted of ourselves it becomes the cheerleader in our corner that tells us that we can succeed if we just try harder or look for better solutions/support. However, when we hold a negative image of ourselves our inner voice pushes us to give up, hide our vulnerability or avoid the risk of hurtful words.
🤓That positive or negative influence then has a tremendous impact on how well a child and think through or even plan out their behavior beforehand. It impacts how they speak to themselves through a mistake, a school project, or after a fight with a friend. And it has such a big impact on how those experiences will go.
🙏Start this week using as many opportunities as possible to build up your child. Explain to them their many strengths and let them overhear you compliment their effort because you can’t take back words like “lazy,” “dumb,” “thoughtless,” or “mean.” Once they are out there they stay out there as what your kids continue to hear in their head. ❤️
