I was one of those children who was afraid to walk. I didn’t walk without holding the side of a wall for at least the first year of my life. My mother told me I walked late, but that I talked really early, and profusely! But walking was a different story, and they did not know why.
My maternal grandmother was very interested in me walking. In fact, so much so that she wanted to put me in a version of high heels for little girls, before I was two. One day she slipped a pair on me when she was visiting Mom. As I walked around the room in the little high heels,
she and Mom watched me carefully. Apparently, I was looking down at my feet as I walked. My grandmother said to my mother, “I don’t know why she walks by looking down at her feet. She should be looking at everything else around her, she needs to be aware of her surroundings.” Mom replied that I walked better when I was looking at my feet. But my grandmother said I needed to look straight and not down.
That was the worst advice anybody could’ve ever given me. This was not a wise comment to make to an impressionable young child.
Let’s cut to years later. I’ve had many falls and many trips. Most of that because I wasn’t looking at where I was walking, which is how my grandmother conditioned me to walk (with practice). Do I blame her? Of course I do. I wasn’t old enough to know better. If I was, then I could blame myself for that choice. It was not my choice. It was hers. My parents were just as guilty. because my mother and father had never said otherwise. Instead, they adopted the persona of saying to people “oh my daughter has two left feet.”
Suffice it to say, what you say offhand, direct or within an earshot of a child, is going to have an impression on them. We need to be careful with the words we choose to convey. We need, especially in today’s high tech society, to always remember that. It is really important that we get that message across. Though people can be well-meaning, it's important to be aware of what we convey, especially with children.
So the next time you feel the need to advise someone who is too young to exercise their own choice, think really hard about how your words will directly affect them and how your words will guide them through life. You can’t take back a word once it is spoken and that can have good or bad repercussions. It’s best to hold off until we discern the right words, and the ones that would be more helpful.
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