The Toxic Phrases We Need To Stop Saying To Kids

simarik via Getty Images In the course of raising children, all parents say things that we’re not super proud of. “You’re OK!” or “It’s not a big deal.” When a child falls down the playground, they’re inevitably met with a chorus of: “You’re OK!” Similarly, when a kid is in the midst of a problem that seems relatively benign — say, a friend takes a toy they were playing with, or an older child shares an off-handed comment from school that doesn’t seem all that serious — many of us parents respond with: “It’s not a big deal.” That instinct is totally understandable, experts say. “When we force our kids to go hug somebody — or even apologize when they’re not ready — we teach them that they need to perform to please others,” she explained. “We’re also teaching them if their body feels uncomfortable hugging a relative, for example, and they do it anyway, that they need to ignore the signals their body sends them.” This is a boundary parents really might need to hold firm for their children. “My instinct is to say, ‘That’s not true!’ Or maybe it’s a teen girl who says, ‘I’m so ugly’ and our instinct is to say, ‘That’s not true!’ because it hurts us deeply to hear our kids hurting.’” But when they tell us something that’s bothering them, and our parental instinct is to immediately respond “that’s not true,” they hear that we don’t believe them, Ream warned.