POWER TALK

Overcome th
Negative Word
Elizabeth Franklin
Author and Inspirational Speaker
Goodwill Initiatives Organizer
Minister of Time
America's Top 2000 Women
Women's and Youth Ministry
Speaker
30 years with and for children
Most of you, at some point in life, have heard or experienced negative or critical
words. Often, as parents, we speak negative things that we do not mean in haste
or we critique our children’s work to push them toward excellence so they can
succeed. Even if meant well, those negative words lodge in the minds of your
children and teenagers. Then, every time they face a choice in life, the effects of
those words can influence the way they respond, for better or for worse.
Ultimately, to change the behavior of an unruly teenager, we must first change
what they believe about themselves with words.
If a child or teenager hears negative or critical words from
those around them often enough, he or she starts to believe
them. That means the first step is to examine your own
words as a parent, then move to what the child is
hearing from a teacher, a coach, or their peers. Even if
you speak positive words to the child, negative words from
others can still influence them. If a child or teenager allows
those words to have any power whatsoever, those words
become reality. If those words stay lodged in a child or
teenager’s heart and memory, the words continue to have life
and can continue to cause havoc many years later.
I am a motivational speaker for children and young people, and
I rarely find even one child or teen who has not experienced
condemning, critical, negative, failure words spoken over them
at some point in life. Whether it was a parent who constantly
said, “You’re lazy. You’ll never amount to anything.” or a
teacher who said, “You’re going to fail.” Sometimes that
negative talk comes right out of their very own mouths as they
speak against themselves, “I’m never going to be good
enough! I’m going to fail Algebra! I’m not good at anything!”.
Power Talk l Digitalising Future