Our children are curious little sponges that live with us every day. They are around us all the time, when we are on the phone, talking to others and often even when we pray. They get to see us at our best and sometimes at our worst and they are picking up things we do and say all the time.

This is one of the scary things about parenting. Not only do our children learn what we teach them, but also what we don’t teach but they just observe from us.

One of the often unnoticed ways that children pick up things is by overhearing. You might be on the phone or talking to your spouse or a friend, and your little one might be standing nearby listening to everything you say.

Take a moment to think about some of the conversations you have had over the last few days that your children might have had the opportunity to listen in on.
 
Have you recently expressed your concern about the violence and crime in South Africa or shared a horror crime story about what happened to someone you know?

Have you shared your concern about your child’s inability to behave, listen, read, spell, play sports , etc., with anyone lately?

Have you spoken negatively about any family members or even your spouse to anyone lately?

And the list could go on and on of all the negative conversations we have during the day - negative conversations that our children have the opportunity to overhear. All these conversations are unconsciously breeding insecurity, fear, doubt, lack of self-confidence, and general mistrust for people and the world out there.

We as parents are supposed to be the gates keeping out inappropriate influences that could harm our children. However, we also need to make sure that we ourselves are not being the inappropriate influences of our children.

Instead, we as parents need to realise the power of our children overhearing us and use it to our advantage. We need to be taking every opportunity to speak words of life and hope in the conversations we keep.

Our children need to hear us say how much we love our country and its people, how proud we are of them and all they are achieving, how they belong to a special family with a special dad and siblings. Some of this needs to be spoken directly to your child every day, but some of it they need to overhear in your conversations with others, which will confirm that you really mean it.

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