You’re trying to teach them that punctuality is important, but in practice, it’s more a lesson in anxiety. You’re trying to teach them not to do something dangerous, but because you got upset and angry, what you really made them feel was that you were dangerous, that you were not safe. You’re trying to get them to fulfill their potential, trying to motivate them to succeed in school, but in the way you expressed your disappointment at their grades or how they could have hustled a little harder at practice, the real message you sent was that their identity is tied up in what they achieve.

And of course, you didn’t mean to. But that doesn’t really matter. It’s what they hear that matters. It’s what they see that matters.

How easily we end up sending the exact opposite message that we intend! How easily we end up missing the most important lesson we have to send always and in all things: emotional regulation.

Punctuality matters. Grades matter. Listening to adults matters. But if in trying to get this across, we get upset or we make it into something more than it needs to be, we’ll not only don’t get our message across, we’ll end up communicating something we don’t mean. Something that will stick with them far longer than we intend.