Here are 10 Things Your Kids Pick Up on That You Didn’t Realize

Subtle Things Your Kids Pick Up on That You Didn’t Realize

Adults typically forget that, as children, we could also pick up subtle clues from the adults in our lives. Does this mean you should be happy and go lucky all the time? Of course not. Life happens, and stresses happen, but we can choose to be more intentional with our words and actions around our children. Doing so will help our children feel more secure and optimistic about life and themselves. Parents can be intentional about behaviors and words so there are more positive things your kids pick up on than negative.

Friction Between Parents

Anybody who has been married for more than a week can tell you disagreements arise in marriage. As a couple, you are not going to agree on everything. You may get annoyed with your spouse or frustrated because you always have the same argument. However, conflict is one of the things your kids pick up on whether you try to hide it or not.

Whether it’s the tension in your voice, an eye roll, or a sarcastic quip, children can pick up on the tension between their parents. Some research suggests that even babies as young as six months old can pick up on parental tension. The tension tends to have a spillover effect on children. Children can develop negative responses depending on how frequent and hostile the conflict is. These include poor interpersonal skills, anxiety, depression, or even difficulty sleeping.

However, conflict doesn’t have to be volatile or intense for children to pick up if there’s friction between you and your spouse. Modeling positive conflict resolution and keeping snarky words and disgusted facial expressions out of your disagreements benefit your child immensely.

How You Talk About Them With Other People

Children are human. You will not have perfect days with them every single day. They will have meltdowns, bad attitudes, and disagreements with their parents. If you have a terrible day with your child or are struggling with an attitude, it’s easy for those situations to come out in conversations, whether speaking to your spouse, a friend, or a family member.

Overhearing negative comments said about them to others, even if you think they aren’t old enough to understand, can affect their self-esteem. Instead, try discussing difficulties in private. If a rough day or lousy attitude comes up, talk about how you and your child are working towards a solution to the problem. Furthermore, you can pivot the conversation to a positive thing your child has said or done recently, instead of talking negatively about them or their behavior.

Your Stress Levels

Stress in life is inevitable. However, no matter how great you think you are at hiding your stress, studies have shown that one of the things your kids pick up on is their parent’s suppressing stress levels. The effect? The children also become stressed. The study, “Keep it to Yourself?” shows that trying to hide stress levels still has an interesting effect:

• “Suppressing mothers’ SNS responses influenced their child’s SNS responses.”
• “Suppressing fathers’ SNS responses were influenced by their child’s SNS responses.”

SNS stands for the sympathetic nervous system, which activates our flight or fight response to stressors.

Interestingly, the study observed parents who suppressed their stress and showed that children still responded to their suppressed stress levels.

How You Feel About Yourself/Negative Self-Talk

Children pay attention to their words. If you constantly talk negatively about your body or capabilities, your children will pick up on it. Even if you tell them to love themselves and how beautiful and creative they are, they will pick up on how you feel about yourself.

Our self-talk will unintentionally teach our children how to feel about themselves. If we constantly complain about how we don’t think we are pretty or about our weight, our children may also learn to pick apart themselves.

Everyone has something they don’t like about themselves, but working on positive self-talk will build your confidence and teach your children how to become more confident in who they are.

Your Relationship With Food

Whether intentionally trying or not, we teach our children how to develop a relationship with food daily. If we use food as a comfort, our child will pick up on it. If we label foods negatively, like saying this is bad food, I can’t have it, they will also pick up on it.

There can be several extremes. Your child may learn the bad habit of turning to food whenever stressed. They may be scared to try anything because it has been labeled bad. Additionally, they could be more prone to binge eating anything you label as “bad” because they don’t get it at home. These extremes and more all affect your child’s relationship with food.

If you want your child to grow up having a healthy relationship with food, it starts with you. Begin by explaining health, why some foods are better, and how our body needs fuel from these foods, but that doesn’t mean that food is either “good” or “bad.” Instead, some foods are created to have as treats every once in a while, while other foods are important for fueling our bodies. Additionally, developing healthy outlets for stress will teach your child how to respond to their stress levels without turning to food.

Self-Confidence or Self-Esteem

We model self-confidence for our children, whether we mean to or not. Children are intuitive, and how you feel about your abilities is on full display for them. Your self-esteem is one of the important things your kids pick up on.

They can see it when you try something new, whether you hold yourself back, and how you handle difficulties.

How You Handle Mistakes

How you handle mistakes affects self-confidence and self-esteem. Mistakes are part of life. Do you get up and try again? Do you allow the setback to hold you back?

Children are keen observers. They pay attention to how you respond to setbacks and mistakes. They pick up on whether or not you beat yourself up over a little mistake. If you forgive, or ask forgiveness. In turn, they will internalize these behaviors. They may begin to become just as hard on themselves or learn how to give themselves grace.

How You Talk and Feel About Other People

Children don’t just pay attention to how we talk about ourselves or them. They also pick up on how we speak about others. If you constantly talk negatively about a family member, a friend, or that “one school mom,” it is one of those subtle things your kids pick up on.

Conflict arises in life. We will not like every single person. However, it is possible to treat everyone with respect. If our children hear us talking badly about someone we don’t like, they will form opinions that mirror ours. Truthfully, this isn’t entirely fair for our child because our feelings are no doubt biased. Conversely, if we show people respect, even if we don’t like them, our children will learn to respect others.

If You Aren’t Really Listening to Them

Distractions are everywhere. Have you ever been distracted by your child asking you a question and then realized you had just agreed to buy them something or take them somewhere?

Children are similar to adults in this regard. They can tell when you aren’t listening to them. They see it in your interactions: Are you responding enthusiastically or half-heartedly? Are you on your phone while they are talking?

As adults, our minds are full of everything: to-do lists, work obligations, and school schedules, so it’s easy to half-listen to our kids. However, they deserve our full attention, and we owe it to them and ourselves to make sure they don’t feel like that phone in our hands is more important than them. Whether you mean it or not, this is one of those things your kids pick up on.

If You Don’t Like Their Friends

More than likely, you will not like every one of your child’s friends. It’s not always a bad thing if your child can pick up on whether or not you don’t like their friends.

However, there are always exceptions. We don’t want our children to hang out with bad influences or someone who is terrible to them.

However, if your child is hanging out with someone who is just a little annoying or different from what you’re used to but isn’t a terrible influence, then keeping how you feel about their friends to yourself can be more beneficial.

It’s good for our children to be around people who aren’t exactly like them. This friend you don’t like may be the one to pull your child out of their comfort zone. Additionally, they may encourage them to try that new activity they were scared to try or to introduce them to a new passion.

If your child’s friend (whom you don’t like) is not a bad influence or is not mistreating your child, trying to stay neutral about your feelings may benefit your child more than those snarky comments or subtle facial expressions.

How to Model More Positive Behavior Than Negative

While it’s not possible to always be positive, we can be intentional about our actions, words, and behaviors to model positive behavior for our children. Here are a few ideas to help you be more positive than negative.

Talk Positively About Your Child to Others Within Their Earshot

When talking about your child to others, take that opportunity to talk positively about them. Even if they are not part of the conversation, they will hear the positive things you say if they are within earshot.

Talk about the kind deed your child did or how hard they worked on studying for a test. When you see and acknowledge their effort, their self-esteem will rise as opposed to complaining about what they are doing or criticizing their grades.

Have Honest Conversations

Talk honestly with your child, depending on their age. They are more capable of understanding complex ideas. Discuss human emotion, how everyone makes mistakes, even adults, and how we should try our best despite messing up. These healthy and honest conversations will resonate with your child, even if you make mistakes as a parent (and you will because there’s no such thing as a perfect parent.)

Shrug off the “Do as I say, not as I do” Mentality

Somewhere along the line, adults developed this mentality that children should “do as I say, not as I do.” This is a recipe for disaster. Most children do not listen to a person who is a hypocrite. If we tell our children to eat healthy, but we don’t have a healthy relationship with food, they are likelier to develop an unhealthy relationship with food.

If we tell our children to be kind and respectful to everyone but then talk negatively about the neighbor in front of them, they are more likely to do what we are doing.

Therefore, modeling positive behavior is more effective than telling our children what they should and shouldn’t do.

Show Respect to Yourself and Your Child

Showing respect for yourself and your child is one of the best ways to model positive behavior. Our children watch how we speak about ourselves. They see if we love and are kind to ourselves, admit when we are wrong, and try again after mistakes. If we treat ourselves with respect and kindness, our children are more likely to be kinder and offer grace to themselves and others.

The same goes for showing respect to them. Apologize when you make a mistake, offer compassion, and try to keep criticism at bay. Soft hearts and compassion are better teachers than criticism.

Don’t be afraid to be Human

Everybody is a human, including you. While intentionally modeling positive behavior is essential, you can’t be afraid to be human. Our children learn more from our humanness than from us trying to be perfect.

Don’t be afraid to let your child know that, yes, even though you are an adult, you are human. You will make mistakes, but you wake up every day and try your best, no matter what. Your child will notice you are trying your best, and when it’s all said and done, that is what makes a great parent.

One Last Note

Children pick up on more cues than we realize, whether friction between parents, stress levels, or a parent’s relationship with food. These subtle clues are all things your kids pick up on, and they tell children inadvertently how to feel about life, themselves, and their capabilities. While everyone is human, it’s still important to try your best to be as intentional as possible, work on yourself, and model positive behavior so your children pick up on more positive cues than negative ones.