Starting from scratch:

Almost daily I am reminded that children are virtually "blank slates" where communication is concerned. I remember one time my daughter was pretending to read the story of "The Princess and the Pea," a book she had never read before. As she read, I discovered she had misinterpreted "Pea" to be of the bodily function nature instead of the round green vegetable nature. So she proceeded to make up the words to the story about the princess and painted the scene of her unfortunate "accident" a thought that had never occurred to me. So yesterday there was a similar incident. My daughter came home from preschool and told me that her friend said she was going to "Scare the pants off of someone" - Kind of the same deal - she was thinking literally because she doesn't get the expression and the language.

So this got my mind going (it doesn't take much). Kids are always listening to adults and repeating what they say, even though they may not understand the basic idea and this includes the bad things that we do or say. For example, my husband has an uncle who always says inappropriate remarks (usually of the racial kind, much to my dismay), but everyone in my husband's family is sort of used to it and accepts this behavior as a "he's just like that, ignore him" kind of thing. What do you do though? Telling people like this to stop only appears to increase their behavior. It’s like they thrive on agitation. You also can't very well shun your family for their remarks (Okay wait...on a side note: Wouldn't it be nice if we could shun our family? I mean, not all of them, but the ones who really get under your skin. Like the racist ones or the one who always points out your flaws, like a messy house, slouching, etc. Or is it just me??? Anyway…). My mother says to make racist people feel uncomfortable by telling them I am of another decent, in order to make them stop talking (I guess technically speaking, I am…). At least this was her solution when I complained of a boss I had in Missouri that would constantly say derogatory things about other races. Despite her other faults, my mom is extremely non-tolerant of racism in any form. I explained to her that I was not sure this solution would work either because he would just talk behind my back instead.

Racism isn't the only problem though... there are other behaviors our children pick up as well - language, habits, violence, etc. Other than racist family members and other outside chatter... I have found members inside my own household to be the culprit of some unconscious blabbering about inappropriate things - myself even! Alright, I will admit something: I yell. Not all of the time, but I know I have a habit of raising my voice when I feel that I am being ignored. I can't help it; I grew up in a family full of loud people and yellers. I think mostly it was a space issue. We always had an upstairs and downstairs and no one felt like walking downstairs to make a request, so we would all just yell to say "Bring me a glass of water please!!!" or whatever (okay it was a laziness issue too). I also yell because I feel what I am trying to say is important and don't want the information to be missed by my dear, somewhat deaf loved ones. That "flair" button on Facebook that says "I yell because I care" should seriously be my adopted motto. Anyway, despite my sad, pathetic reasoning, it is still a bad habit nonetheless. At least I am conscious of it and am trying to change my poor behavior.

The point is... I have recently discovered that while my child is exposed to these bad habits and sometimes rude and ignorant people, I don't have to roll over and play dead, allowing her sponge-like brain to soak up everything she hears and parrot this information to the rest of the world. We all have bad habits we would rather not pass onto our little ones, but let's be honest; we aren't going to shed all of our flaws at the drop of a hat. So, what I have figured out is something that I actually learned from a friend. She said "No matter what, I can honestly say I have taught my children the difference between right and wrong. They can't say anything different."

I think that's the key: As long as we can catch ourselves (or others) doing or saying something that we know is not quite right, we should take the time to point this out to our children. I actually read that somewhere: You are supposed to tell your child, "Oh, mommy got upset over traffic, how silly." Or Uncle Harry doesn't understand that making fun of others is wrong, but you know better right? Here's one I use a lot (refer to above story): Mommy shouldn't have raised her voice, I'm sorry. What should I have done instead?" The important thing here is so that I can make sure my daughter knows there is a better solution than the one I chose. I also learned from a magazine recently to role-play various incidents like "Should I tell so and so she has an ugly dress on?" and see what they say. We'll see if this works - I'll check back in and let you know, in about 20 years from now. Anyway, there's the look into my daily thought processes! ;)