Thank you for downloading the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast. You can find more helpful advice at

Focus on the Family.com.

In the Bible, the Book of Proverbs, says the one who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps his life from troubles.

And it certainly is true in parenting that fewer words are often better than many words. and on the family and today we're going to hear from authors Michael Anderson and

Dr Timothy Johanson who spoke to Jim Daly and me about choosing your words

very carefully when you correct your kids. Let's talk a minute about the shame because I think that's again a big issue in our parenting styles today that we tend to in that desire to have better behavior

We tend to utter words that we probably regret as parents like if you don't do this

You're lazy, you're whatever.

What we say in the book about shame is

shame is really an overcorrelation

of what your child does with who they are.

And parents really need to tease that out

and make sure that they're choosing words when they talk to their child

that don't judge them in a way that's shameful.

So maybe your child doesn't clean their room up very well.

A shaming parent would say you're a slob.

Right.

A non-shaming parent would say, you need to clean your room.

But the child hears very different things in that.

And any 10 or 12 times of that isn't going to matter, but over the course of a lifetime it really does matter.

Your five assignments behind in math, that's all I'm going to say.

My daughter used to say to me, you don't trust me.

...