Teaching Children To Speak Kindly

Teaching Children to Speak Kindly with Felice Gerwitz

Episode #184

How difficult is it to teach your children to speak kindly? In this episode, Felice discusses struggles with her own children and ways she found to teach them to speak kindly and with love.

Sponsor is Media Angels, Inc –visit MediaAngels.com for more information. Homeschooling with Proverbs

Show Notes: Teaching Children To Speak Kindly:

Identify the issues
Address the situation

I tried all types of things…

Close proximity
Punishments
Lose dessert

Questions I asked my children:

Do you know how rudely you are speaking?
Would you speak the same way to a friend?
Would you speak the same way if the Lord was sitting here with us. (If God is God and He is everywhere… then, HE is here.)

Phase 1:

1. Scripture verses

Close proximity – sometimes in chairs knee to knee (I was close by)
Having them do kind acts to each other – and the other one appreciating it with words
Play acting and modeling behavior – teaching children the correct response to make
Punishments – one son it took $10 each occurrence to get it to stop (older teen) –my theory that God makes the little ones so cute you can’t ever imagine them leaving home – and when it gets to your older teens, they are the ones you eventually want to help pack when they leave… okay, not quite true but you know what I mean.

It is obviously a heart issue and that is Phase 2

Prayer – pray with that child, ask them why they are so angry. Pray often with them.
Kindness is a virtue – pray specifically for the Lord to bless your child with that virtue
Example – by setting examples we as parents are modeling kindness and love to our children

What does the Bible say?

Proverbs 16:24 Kind words are like honey-sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.
Proverbs 15:26 The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the LORD: but the words of the pure are pleasant words.
Proverbs 12:14 From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied with good, and the work of a man’s hand comes back to him.
Proverbs 10:21 The words of the godly encourage many, but fools are destroyed by their lack of common sense.