You are a coward.
This is what my daughter was told today by a friend, and it upset her. While I am not going to go into the behaviors of this particular "friend", I do get that Smallsteps was hurt by the words, because she is yet to learn a valuable lesson in life.
Words are just sounds.
Sure, we can look at the dictionary meaning these sounds represent, but at the end of the day, the emotional meaning is applied at the individual level. People can argue that there are positive and negative words, but no matter the word there are none that are universally negative to say or hear. It always depends on multiple factors, like context and of course, audience. Even words that are mostly seen as good or bad will have instances where the opposite is the case.
The example I used with Smallsteps for this was the word "mummy" which for her is probably the most important word in her life, even though her first word was "daddy" - I fact I like to remind my wife of from time to time. So, while mummy (in some form) is a positive word for the majority of people, if someone was abused by their mother, it might be a word that invokes fear or animosity, rather than warm, fuzzy feelings.
This is not to say that words don't have power.
Because they do.
They have power because people believe that they have power. It is a bit like fiat currency, where because people believe that it has value, it does. And words become a currency that can be traded for reaction, based on what value people assign to them. And, because there is a collective belief in the meaning of many words, they can be used to influence our behaviors in many ways, to inspire us to do awesome things, or devastating things.
For my daughter however, I want her to understand that the power of words at the individual level is something that she can learn to control. It is possible to disconnect herself from the word meanings, and look at them in other ways, like the way they are said, the tone, the intention behind them. Rather than focusing on the word, focus on the actions surrounding them, because the word is not the thing.
Are you a coward?
No.
Does calling you a coward, make you a coward?
No.
You are a stinky pig face.
Oink.
(Fuck she makes me laugh)
Even if people believe what they are saying is true, it doesn't matter. Words don't change reality, unless we act upon them. I can say and truly believe that I am seven feet tall, but it doesn't make it so. Similarly, someone can call me a myriad other names, and none of them may describe me at all.
Did you know that while it means a great number or large variety now, a "myriad" is specifically 10,000?
Words change meaning.
Which is interesting to note in a world that puts so much emphasis on the meaning of words, where people are "hurt" by hearing spoken sounds, or reading a collection of letters. If we took a step back and evaluated the importance we place on and our reactions to words, we would realize how laughable it is that we are so incredibly fragile.
The words people call other people, tell nothing about the target, but a lot about the speaker. It is them who with intention or not, are applying meaning to the words under the belief that the receiver is going to onboard the same meaning. This makes sense, because this is how we can communicate with each other and describe objects or give directions. But, once those words have an emotional valence applied, they become ambiguous in meaning, and it is impossible to know precisely how someone feels about the words they use.
I have been called many names in my life and when I was young, many were said with the intention to hurt me - but words don't hurt. Actions can. And for people who want to live a largely pain-free emotional life, teasing apart what is actually harmful from what is intended to be harmful, is one of the steps. Disconnect from the emotions of words and instead connect with the actions of people, and it will become far clearer what is a real threat, and what is not.
What I have realized is that many people use words with the intention to do some harm, rather than physically getting into an altercation. And, while this is a good thing in some respects, what it also does has made us feel more sensitive to this kind of harm, as if we are getting physically impacted. And, the more this happens, the more we identify with words, it seems the less effort we put into actually learning something, and doing something useful with our lives. We end up focusing on these ambiguous sounds coming out of people's mouths, as if them saying it makes it a reality, even though they do not follow them up with actions.
Gen-Z are more focused on the environment.
No. They are more focused on talking about the environment. There is a big difference between people who are doing something, and people who are saying they are doing something. It is like a government saying that they have the best interests of citizens in mind, while they are finding ways to decrease quality of living so that corporations can make greater profits.
Thought. Word. Action.
These are the core steps to creation. First we think something, then we form it into some kind of dialogue, then we act upon it. However, thoughts and words alone do nothing. The imperative part for creation is the Action. Words are just words until they are acted upon, or reacted upon. Because we have been trained to be reactive to meanings of words, with our unique set of trigger words based on our experiences and social conditioning, when we hear certain things, we react, like Pavlov's dog salivating at the sound of a bell.
I think what we have to consider in our lives is where we spend our attention, as it is the only currency we have control over. We can pay attention to all kinds of things, and where we spend our attention, is not only going to dictate what we learn, but also how we feel about our experience.
My daughter is approach eight, and it is these kinds of playground experiences that will help shape her into an adult. How she experiences the world as an adult is also going to be affected by how she associates herself in the world today, and if we spend our early years identifying with what people call us, and what people think of us, we are are likely to end up in a spiral of pain, constantly chasing the approval of others, just so they call us something we want to hear.
The words we love, are not love itself.
They are just different sounds.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
To be fair... Gen-Z age ranges from 11 to 26.
I do agree that action counts way, way, way more than words.... like magnitudes more.
Hope Smallsteps is going okay... I'm sure the kid calling her a coward was just trying to get her to do something that benefitted that kid.
Kids say the darndest things... Will be interesting what they think of life in two decades.
I think the modern day focus on what words people say, is a step backwards for actions that lead to better outcomes. It is making people feel like they are doing something, without actually doing something, akin to changing a profile picture in "solidarity".
Yep, she is fine. This particular friend is only happy when she gets what she wants, and cruel when she doesn't. Smallsteps will have to learn how to handle these situations and people through experience and reflection.
I don't know if I agree that it's the best move to fully dissociate from words, but I do think it is a good idea to try to understand the meaning behind them. Realizing that a person is speaking from a place of hurt versus a place of malice can change the whole dynamic of the interaction.
I don't think it is fully disassociating, more disconnecting from the meaning of the word to give space to observe other aspects before reacting. It is like taking ownership of our emotions, catching them, understanding them, before reacting to them.
For sure. However, it is also good to remember that some people are always "hurt" and then attack as a defense mechanism. This are the people who don't take ownership to understand their "own" feelings.
Sadly, I am likely one of the people that speaks from a place of hurt sometimes. Not all the time, but I know I can get pretty fired up in the heat of the moment.
Me too. I guess we all are from time to time - but some of us are more regular than others.
I think it's not about generations obviously some are more fragile than others it's about teaching your daughter what you already know to deal with this kind of people who want to pressure you to do what they want and if you don't do it they insult you in different ways just to get you to do what they want also you have to understand that girls think differently and we are more sentimental and words matter a lot to us for a long time they called me different names in school that made me feel bad for a while but I never shed a tear in front of them the strength to cry in front of them. we think differently and we are more sentimental and words matter a lot to us for a long time they called me different names in school that made me feel bad for a while but I never shed a tear in front of them the strength to acquire a solid character and ignore the comments and bad words of others is built with time.
We are raising generations of fragile people, yet still expecting them to find the strength to overcome a troubled world. All they seem to be doing is to avoid dealing with the world, hiding away behind entertainment and isolating on screens.
Never cry in front of tormenters.
I learnt from my husband not to attach important to useless talks from people. He won't even want me to mention it that somebody said so and so. That really improve my relationship with people.
Gossip is not a healthy past time :)
My man.
Virtue signaling at its best.
I agree that actions are the important thing to notice here. I can't count the number of times I've heard something horrible said to me. I also sleep well every night. (I also don't hear the compliments either.)
Isn't it interesting that the majority of us seem to be hyper sensitive to the negative, but gloss over the positive?
It's a survival mechanism probably. I remember hearing a famous athlete asked which was more memorable: losing in the championship or winning. He said losing. Over evolutionary time, I'd assume that remembering the bad is way more important for survival. Let's go pessimism.
This reminded me about a comment I read on how to take insults in stride. They treated them like a foreign language. If one doesn't know German, and a German started hurling insults to them, they won't be affected because they don't understand it. I like how you taught your daughter. Words only have power over us if we let it.
Precisely. This is another thing I demonstrated for Smallsteps, and something I have used before as an example for the meaning of words.
Who knows, maybe the sounds babies make are actually the worst insults, but the parents just don't understand. :)
In the court or if there is a legal case between two adults, no one cares what about the verbal altercations. The one that threw the first punch is automatically faulted, the other party the victim.
It is our reaction to words that gives them meaning.
These days in a lot of places, they are focusing on the words said, as if they are guns and knives.
Sometimes, we could be hurt so bad by the wrong word from others to us. It better we train our minds to easily discard useless words
Very interesting thoughts, with which I partly agree. But I have reservations about other parts.
To say that words are simply sounds and that their emotional meaning is attributed individually, minimizes the real effects that words can have on people. Let's not forget that there is a wealth of research showing that words can have profound and lasting impacts on self-esteem and mental health. In particular, verbal harassment can cause psychological damage comparable to that of physical harassment. I don't think your aim was to downplay this point, but I thought it worth pointing it out.
Another thing, you claim that there are no universally negative words. But what about racial slurs or other discriminatory terms? I think these words are widely recognized in many cultures as hurtful and unacceptable.
On the other hand, yes, we can have control over how we react to words. So we can reduce the impact of negative words, but I don't think we can get away from them.
Dear my bro @tarazkp !
Young children say and do the most cruel things thoughtlessly!
Perhaps we too have committed such cruel actions and words in our childhood.
By the way, I wonder how you will heal the psychological wounds of Smallsteps! And, how do you heal the psychological wounds you received?
Hmm
What if I take it from this angle that telling Smallsteps that words are just sounds is a way to cool her temper so if someone tells her any negative thing again, she’d not take it seriously.
Also, words have meanings as you have said but at the same time, one has to be understanding and we’d be surprised to realize that some people don’t know the meaning of the words that they say. They just say it out of anger and all…
As a mother, I know very well how shocking a couple of words may be. Even for us it is complicated most of the times, imagine listening for the very first time a powerful word being a kid....
Disconnect from the emotions of words and instead connect with the actions of people, and it will become far clearer what is a real threat, and what is not.
Sometimes, we just focused on the words forgetting the type of person who told us those words.
The reason why my husband laugh at me everytime I told him "I don't like you" because he's only focusing on me rather than the words I throw. He believed that I was joking and he knows me very well. @tarazkp