Taming the Tongue - Have a Positive Impact on your Child by Changing your Tone of Voice & Language — Peaceful Living with Miranda

‘Taming the tongue’ is very much a Christian phrase (it’s in the Bible), but it’s meaning has real wisdom for everyone, in every situation - and especially those who are in a position of authority.

As mothers, we stand firmly in this leadership space - along with all the other types of leaders you can possibly imagine - and even in friendships based in equality. To put it bluntly, ‘taming the tongue’, or managing your tone of voice, is a crucial part of building healthy relationships and maintaining not only other people’s emotional health, but your own too.

Let’s go through some reasons not only why we need to be so careful about tone of voice, but also how to start stopping yourself from saying things you just don’t mean - and impacting your family or child negatively when you don’t intend to.

Taming the Tongue - have a positive impact on your child by changing your tone of voice

Firstly, welcome to my blog! I am an Australian emotional health coach and parent consultant - and teacher, too! I share information for Christian women (and anyone) around slow motherhood, building your wellbeing, and tips on how to build family connection and your child’s emotional wellbeing, too. You can find out more about what I do here on my About page, or the Emotional Health bookings page. Thanks for reading, and I pray you walk away with something practical to help you find peace and joy in your family.

What does ‘taming the tongue’ even mean?

This phrase is used in the Bible in James 3, verses 1-12. Throughout that passage, James (who was Jesus’ brother, by the way) shares about the importance of controlling our tongue (words) and how just a small part of our body can create much harm or much good to those around us - and ourselves.

As a teacher, mother, and coach (to name a few), I have seen so many people say things to others that could be harmful to their emotional health, or their body image, social status, way they view the world, and how they view marriage, relationships, and so on. It can be almost hard to stand there and listen to the words some people say to their children, even.

It’s simple - what we say has the potential to start something great - or something terrible.

We can use our words for building others up, or pulling them down - and often within the same conversation!

Taming the tongue isn’t easy - but if we don’t, it can get us in trouble

As James shares, actually stopping yourself saying hurtful things, especially when you are frustrated, burnt out or angry (any other mums out there?), is so unbelievably hard. Especially if you aren’t used to it, or are in the habit of gossiping, or joining in the ‘rant session’ with other mums, and so on - it can be hard to stop yourself. It truly can feel like you are saying things you don’t want to say - but once you’ve said it, it can be very hard to take back.

It’s easy to just say ‘Well, I’ll be nicer next time.’ But, as it happens with so many of us, we get angry at our child when they left their socks on the floor (again) and we skidded on them (again) and hurt our back (again)… and then we are straight back into it, calling them a messy child who just can’t get their stuff together, and whatever else you add onto that remark yourself.

You get the idea.

Because, while some parents feel like this is actually sharing the ‘truth’ with their child, if it’s a regular thing, your child can take it on board as part of their personality. Build it into their character - and if we don’t control our tongues, out tone of voice, then our kids misinterpret what is really important to us with what we complain about, or talk about constantly at them.

Do your kids think a tidy room is more important than a hug? Or that in order to be accepted by you, they need to have a clean face or have done their homework? You may not think this is the impression you give - but they only see your actions, and if these aren’t showing love enough, and acceptance, and unconditional positive regard, they might just be getting a different story from you than you intend to give.

*tissue break, if you need it. That was a big one, Mama. Take a moment if you need.*

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Taming the Tongue isn’t just about words

For thousands of years (at least!) people have used their voices to do all sorts of things - mostly related to communication with others. But, it’s not only the words that have an impact. Hearing the tone people are using often gives us a clear impression of what they are talking about, too. If you’ve ever watched the amazing kids TV show (which most adults love) called Shaun the Sheep - you will know what I mean. The creators of this show include almost zero spoken words in the whole long list of episodes - it is mostly sheep, the dog, pigs and the farmer using action and vocal sounds (not words) to share what they are doing in each hilarious skit.

The thing is, it is a fantastic demonstration of what can be accomplished in communication, without the use of words.

I’m going to get a bit vulnerable here and share a little story - there was a time when my daughter wanted me to come and talk to her teacher about how she had hurt herself accidentally. I have 3 kids, as many of my readers/podcast listeners know, and this was when we were late for school, and my other two younger kids needed to be taken to their classrooms too. I let down my guard and let out an ‘urghh’ sigh (just a small one) and she immediately just said ‘Forget it, Mum’, and walked off to her classroom, with her head down.

I felt so bad, but also she was actually old enough to tell her teacher herself. But in retrospect, I should have dealt with that a different way - or at least managed to say no without the resentment when we were running late.

Body language, vocals (regardless of actual spoken words) has a huge impact on what we are saying, too. While we all do things like this, it’s important to understand what impact this might have on our child, others we interact with - or even how we interact with ourselves.

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So how do we go about taming the tongue?

Here are 3 ways to start working on both your tone of voice and taming the tongue in your leadership role and/or as a Mama.

Start observing where things go a little pear-shaped for you on a regular basis. If you are finding yourself emotionally exploding at 3:30pm every day, maybe you need to make sure you have a snack or a break at 3pm. It could, literally, be that simple.

If your anger or frustration keeps ‘running away with you’, give yourself a break when you need it. Add a ‘pattern interrupt’ into your life, bringing a little physical or attention-grabbing practice into that moment when you realise you are going over the ‘edge’ of your emotional control. Some ideas for this are:

Have a stress ball in your pocket
Look out the window into nature and remind yourself that the world is bigger than you, and you don’t have to have it all together
Send up one of these quick ‘Help me!’ prayers (learn more here)

Get yourself praying if you are a pray-er. It’s not that hard - God will help you be the parent He needs you to be. He is kind, gracious and caring - and He can help you become more that way, too, in time.

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Learning about taming the tongue, and ways to manage your tone of voice as a parent, are essential ways to very quickly create a happier, more positive atmosphere in your home - but be aware that it does take time to turn these from ‘initiatives’ into real, authentic habits.

If you need someone alongside you to help you with this, find out how I can help by clicking here to go to my Emotional Health Bookings page and look at what I do with my clients.

Taming the Tongue - Have a positive impact on your child by changing your tone of voice