Planting Ideas With Our Words
Author: James Conlon
“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice”
Our words can carry far more power than we realise. They can inspire, motivate and make people feel good about themselves. They can also hurt, undermine and destroy others. And often without intention or malice. A poorly considered sentence or remark can have a lasting effect.
As a child, were you told to “be careful” or “stay safe” as you left the house? It is common parental advice. Yet it can be counterproductive. The advise assumes there is external danger, that they should constantly be alert to, but without providing any specific information. Studies have found that children who are frequently told to take care or be careful as they leave home tend to be generally more anxious than those who are given positive instructions such as ‘have a great day.’ ‘enjoy yourself, or ‘have fun.’
The chases are you can recall a comment or statement made you, years ago by a parent or teacher that has stuck with you and had a negative impact. It is unlikely that was the intention of the person that said it. But nevertheless, the impact was long-lasting.
Understanding a few fundamentals around how we process and understand languages can help us avoid our words having unintentional consequences and instead, deliberately use them to achieve positive outcomes.
Why Are Our Words So Powerful?
When we communicate our words express our thoughts and experiences. Our audience hears the words and processes them, creating a mental picture of what we have described. However, the picture our audience creates is bound to be different from our own. Consider the following statement, “I saw a dog this morning, in the park, chasing a ball. It is unlikely you have created the same mental image as I had when I wrote the statement. You may picture a small terrier whilst I, a Great Dane. Your dog may be white, whilst mine brown, or black? Yours chasing a tennis ball whilst mine a football? How have you imagined the park? Are there trees, shrubs and flowers or swings and roundabouts?
The different permutations are endless. Yet these differences do not stop the flow of conversation, they enable it. If we had to describe every scene in minute detail for dialogue to work it would be overly long and drawn out. Instead, we subconsciously make assumptions about the information we share, in the belief our audience will be able to deconstruct our words and create an internal representation or mental image, which is similar enough for the dialogue to make sense. These assumptions are known as presuppositions.
Because we must mentally process a statement to understand it, we must also mentally process any assumptions or presuppositions it contains. The presuppositions we use in our language can have a big impact on those around us whether intentional or not.
When my children were young, I would pick them up from primary school. When I walked through the playground it was common to hear the tears of children who’d fallen and scrapped an elbow or knee. Often, I also heard a parent telling a tearful son to; “Stop crying, don’t be a girl.” Or words to that effect. I wonder what impact such words have on the next generation of young men. The statement presupposes expressing hurt is a weakness, connected to masculinity. It also implies being ‘a girl’ is an insult. Bearing in mind how men can struggle to talk about emotional issues and the continued glass ceiling many women experience in the workplace, I can not help but feel these parents were unintentionally perpetuating both.
Using Presuppositions To Plant Ideas
“Words can inspire and words can destroy”
Well-crafted sentences using positively intentioned presuppositions can generate great results. All parents know how difficult it can be to get information from their children about their school day. “How was your day?”, is usually rewarded with a one-word answer, “fine” or “OK”. Whilst the right presuppositions can trigger their thought processes.
Consider this alternative question, ‘What was the best thing you learnt today?’ This presupposes there were multiple learnings of differing value. When I use this type of question with my children, they immediately start reflecting on the day’s events. Once these thought processes are activated they are far more likely to share what is on their mind. Similar questions I ask are: ‘who’s had the best day?’, ‘what was the funniest thing that happened?’ and ‘what were you most happy about?’.
Presuppositions are also effective at changing negative thinking. I frequently work with people who have an aversion to public speaking. As an event draws near, they can focus on the worst-case scenario. What if they forget their lines or freeze? I challenge these unhelpful thought processes with statements such as ‘Just imagine how great it will feel when you have successfully completed it.’ This presupposes the event will be a success and they will feel great. They must imagine this scenario, even if briefly, to process the statement. This moves them away from a negative, anxious state of mind to a more positive one.
By deciding which assumptions or presuppositions we want others to focus on and embedding them into our dialogue, we can directly influence their thought processes. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the seeds we plant will grow. People have free will and may reject the presuppositions. But they must at first consider them before they can reject them. Often that’s all it takes.