“Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”
Proverbs 16:24
As the mother of three grown boys, I am growing increasingly aware of the deficit of good words I speak into my sons’ lives. When my sons were little, words like ‘good job,’ ‘well done,’ or ‘I love you,’ came more naturally than nowadays.
Yet the teen/young adult years can be a minefield of emotions, ‘drama’ as one of my son’s friends termed it, and closed doors. Boys, especially, aren’t inclined to discuss emotions or what happened in the course of their day.
Self-acceptance and self-image can suffer through those years when their peers are dating, driving, working, and seemingly have it all together. Social media mostly serves to exacerbate those feelings of failure, incompetency, and loneliness. Thus the importance of speaking love and healing into our children’s lives.
Ask yourself; when was the last time you bragged on your kids? We are often swift to call our kids out for the negatives (poor grades, forgotten chores, bad decisions, tardiness, etc.) yet slow to ‘call them out’ on the positives.
When did you last tell them how proud you are – not just of their accomplishments- but who they are as a person? What are their strengths? How have they grown and matured in the past year? How do you measure success vs how do they perceive success?
With all the negative input they receive from social media, their peers, and society in general, speaking love and healing into our kids should become a daily priority.
In many ways, our teens are more vulnerable to emotional pain now than when they were little. So don’t wait. Today, brag on your kids and let them know how much they mean to you.
If they’ll let you, you might even offer them a hug.