• The resulting effect of the aforementioned cases are humans who are mean hearted, or emotionally closed off from the etiquette of being human, don't care attitudes and a whole lot of negative emotions
• We really need to look into how we communicate with each other not only with children. We need to be at the forefront to protect their self esteem and growth.
We all live by the mantra of attraction. We are attracted by the things we often see in our day to day lives.
We can often get the things we want by using the law of attraction or what has more recently been dubbed "manifesting" and there is no exception to anyone.
Everyone wants the best things in life and if anyone tells you otherwise must be disillusioned or lying.
Therefore, when a man-for example-meets the lady he would be ready to settle down with and have a child, they want nothing but the best for their off-spring.
The parents push, toil and work very hard to provide, care and give the ultimate love to their child.
The more common goal amongst consenting adults in our society today is that they want their child(ren) to grow up living a better life than they had growing up.
Going by that assessment, we all have an idea of what we went through, for those of us born before the millenia, beatings in school, in the name of instilling discipline, torturing punishments and many other vile misconducts done unto us under the guise of making us 'Better children' and therefore better adults.
Knowing this, there are certain things some of us ended up hearing when we were growing up, statements such as "wewe ni mjinga aje?" or "ona huyu ng'ombe" and for some it was way more intense on the insults than compliments.
Thus the effect of this kind of treatment left some with traumatic experiences that could not be reversed, leading them to the inevitable demise of their self esteem.
The result of this is that you find the person not being able to see themselves in the light of them being a capable human, someone who is more than able to carry out certain tasks, or learn the skills they may require to perform a certain task.
The resulting effect of the aforementioned cases are humans who are mean-hearted, or emotionally closed off from the etiquette of being human, don't care attitudes and a whole lot of negative emotions
So, with us knowing all this, the purpose of life is to bring up children in an environment that makes them feel important to the society.
But how bad can the words you use to address a child affect them?
Rukia* is a house manager in one of the estates in Nairobi and she has taken care of her employer's children for a year now.
But she says the kind of treatment she has witnessed in the household is sad.
"My employer is married but the husband is the provider of the family as she is a house wife. Working for them has not been easy because I have had to wipe tears off the children's faces because their mother is constantly using harsh words when taking to them," Rukia said.
She said their mother calls them all sought of names and she has noticed that it has affected them greatly.
Philomena* is a teacher and she said she has had to intervene in cases where children go to school and express how something said something that hurt their feelings.
"Children are innocent and sensitive and we have to be extra careful how we address them. Some kids come to school with so much stress and when they open up, they say an adult said hurtful things to them," she explained.
She added that most children's performance in school is affected because of the small words we use towards them.
"A single word can damage a child's self esteem and affect him or her in different ways. Parents need to be extra careful with the words they use at home or even while addressing them. We need to encourage them not bring them down," she said.
As a grown up, there are words that do not go well with someone when used and with that, we also need to understand that children also feel hurt when some words are used towards them.
Don't call a child stupid. That word is very strong and it get's to someone is one way or another.
Phil* said that he has never forgotten the one time his mother called him stupid.
"That statement really got to me and I felt like I was dumb and of no importance to the society. The most painful part about that word is that it came out of my mother's mouth," Phil said.
He said that in as much as he forgave his mother for using the hurtful word, it is still something that bothers him.
"My mother and I are in good terms and this is after I told her that the statement hurt me. She apologised and has never used such kind of words, even when angry," Phil said.
You are not foolish. Foolish is another word that's constantly used for all the wrong reasons. Calling someone foolish is like insinuating that they are very dumb and there's nothing good about them. No one is foolish
You are not dumb. Dumb is another word that is thrown around carelessly. When you call a child dumb, that will really affect him or her because they will always think that they are not smart and that there's nothing they can say or do that will make people look at them differently.
We really need to be careful how we communicate with each other not only with children. We need to be at the forefront to protect their self esteem and growth.
One word can build you or wreck you. Let us all be considerate and exercise discipline in as far as communication is concerned.
Instead of uttering hurtful words, try and teach your child words of affirmation.
Tell them they are smart, intelligent, worthy, can do anything, strong, powerful and everything positive.
They will grow up living by those words which in turn make them better and have high self esteem which leads them into a life of positivity, creativity and productivity that ultimately can change society's mentality.