The Serrated Edge of Criticism: How to Wound Your Loved Ones

There is a magnificent, beautiful, wonderful painting in front of you!

It is intricate, detailed, a painstaking labor of devotion and love!

The colors are like no other, they swim and leap, they trickle and embellish!

And yet you choose to fixate your eyes on the small fly which has landed on it!

Why do you do such a thing?

~ C. JoyBell C.

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month.  Join me in blogging to erase the stigma of mental illness so our loved ones can seek the help they need.

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riticism has a serrated edge like no other.  It cuts deep and leaves jagged wounds.

I’m not talking about literary criticism. 

Or the critic a writer asks her beta readers to give her.

Or the critique of a fine wine or good restaurant.

I’m talking about negative criticism that tears down confidence, shreds self-esteem, batters the heart, and breaks the spirit.

But I Say This Because I Love You…

The problem with most of us is that we speak before we think.  We eagerly leap to correct someone without getting all the facts (Facebook, anyone?).  We delight in pointing out flaws ~ either character, moral, or simply “You missed a spot there.”

And we usually brush off any pain caused by our omniscient fault-finding by saying “I’m only trying to help.  Don’t you want to be better/turn in a good report/do your best?”

No one is more guilty of this than parents.

I know.  Many of my friends are parents and will probably cry foul.  “But Junior is doing X, Y, and Z!  How else am I to raise an upstanding citizen?!  He has to learn right and wrong.”

True, he does.  No one wants to raise the next criminal mastermind.  But will your negative words really inspire him to greatness?  Has yelling, screaming, or insulting ever produced healthy, integrated results?

 

Words credit: Handsfreemama.com
Image credit: Google

No.  It produces broken, anxious people.

Nine times out of ten, when we are frustrated with someone ~ be they a child or another adult ~ it’s not because we love them. 

It’s because we love our ideals and they aren’t living up to them. 

Now, does this mean that children shouldn’t be taught right from wrong?  Of course not!  But teaching them manners and morals doesn’t have to be done at the cost of their dignity and self-esteem.

Rachel Stafford over at Hands Free Mama has an excellent article today on this very topic: To Build (or Break) A Child’s Spirit.  She admits to being that negative parent and talks about the devastating effect it had on her daughter.  She ceased to see her as her own person, and became either a project to be worked on and perfected.  Or a nuisance to be dealt with.

She was so focused on the fly that she stopped seeing the beautiful work of art.

Happily, she realized the damage she was doing and changed the way she interacted with her child.  And her daughter blossomed again.

Accident Forgiveness for All

How many of us grew up in a home where no matter what we did, it was never good enough?  Or where we were “too much” ~ too loud, too quiet, too energetic, too lethargic, etc.

I may be a grown woman, with years of experience and accomplishments behind me, but even today, both my parents (although my mother is much worse about it) still find fault with everything I do or say. I tried confronting her about once, but that is another story for another day (or a whole chapter in my memoir).  Suffice it to say, my own criticism didn’t go over very well.

One of my co-workers has a sign on her wall that says

You cannot live wanting mercy for yourself
and judgment for others.

And yet that’s how most of us live, isn’t it?  We want everyone else to be perfect, but if we screw up, we want immediate and unconditional “accident forgiveness.”

Isn’t it time we started granting some accident forgiveness to others ~ as well as ourselves?

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

There’s an old poem that starts out “if a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.”  Read it, print it out, and tape it to your bathroom mirror and your back door.  Make one change in how you interact and react to others, especially your children if you have any.  See if there’s a difference in their demeanor and behavior.

Help Your Child Overcome the Odds: The Return of Zita the Spacegirl

Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

~ Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Beginning in January, I am participating in the One Page a Day Challenge.  Hopefully by the end of the year, I'll have 365 pages worth editing.  I’m also trying to follow My Plan for 2014.  I may need therapy by December.  Oh wait…

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t is said that a child is the only being that truly sees and that an adult is one who has become willfully blind. 

Only those who seek the Holy Grail of creativity, art, and invention can be said to have the openness and wonder of a child.

Ben Hatke is such an artist and storyteller.

His Zita the Spacegirl graphic novel series has captured the hearts and imaginations of children everywhere. But especially girls with a heart for adventure and superheroes.

We live in an age where childhood and innocence are under constant attack.  The news is full of stories of horrific and sordid child abuse and abandonment.  In the not-so-sordid, but equally horrific suburban life, children battle bullies, impossibly high expectations, and the secret wounds that is the dysfunctional family.

Enter Zita the Spacegirl.

Kids reading Zita go on an adventure where there is danger, suspense, action, and a daring escape.  To join her is to learn that there are bad guys (which most kids already know), and that seemingly impossible odds can be overcome.

Image credit: Ben Hatke

The Return of Zita the Spacegirl

You think you’ve got it bad with bullies and tons of homework?!  In this third and final installment, our fearless heroine faces her  biggest challenge yet: intergalactic prison!

With a heart-pounding soundtrack and book trailer that makes the graphics come alive, this is the best Zita book yet.  And as a bonus for adults and kids alike, Ben talks about his writing process and the character development of Zita.

Hollywood, are you paying attention?

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

So buy all three Zita the Spacegirl books for the adventurous kid in your life. It will help them battle bullies.  It helped Ben win the cute girl.  Seriously.

Memories: Sweet Sixteen and the Livin' is Easy

Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.

~ George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire

In September, I’m participating in the Sapphire Even Day Blogging Challenge and the Two Pages-A-Day Writing Challenge. 

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on’t look outside.”

Think that’s going to deter a teenager? It didn’t stop me from pressing my face against the glass.  But just-turned-sweet-sixteen year old me didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.  So I shrugged, rolled my eyes and went back to reading whatever classic or new fantasy book I had discovered.

The my mother came into my room and told me that I shouldn’t go downstairs either.  I raised an eyebrow and frowned.  “What is going on?” 

She giggled and clapped a hand over her mouth.  My eyebrow went impossibly higher.

“Nothing.  Just don’t go downstairs until I tell you.”

Then she made the mistake of looking out the window.  So of course, I stood up and looked out too.  And saw a big white truck driving through our front yard.

Weird.

But I had no clue why a) a big white truck would be driving through our front yard (seriously, dudes, what’s wrong with the driveway?!) and b) what could possibly be in the big white truck that my mother wouldn’t want me to see.

“Okaaaay.  Whatever.  I was reading anyway.”

She giggled again and went back downstairs.  I lost myself in my book for another few minutes, but when I heard males voices and a weird bonging sound (no, not that type of bong!), I left my book spread-eagled on my bed and like any normal teenager, disobeyed my mother.

Reality didn’t hit until I was almost to the bottom of the stairs.  The front door and the screen door were as wide open as they would go and three husky guys were straining to move a very large, very shiny black something into the living room.  It was wrapped in heavy moving blankets.  And the bonging sound had come when they bumped over the threshold.

Only one thing makes that sound.  And only one thing has that shape ~ a shape that couldn’t be completely disguised by the blankets.

“Oh my God.  What is that?!”

Dad was grinning like a kid with a new bike and my mother was joking with the moving guys.  My sisters were also in on the big secret and were jumping up and down and squealing like crazy younger siblings do.

“So where do you want us to set it up?”

I looked at my parents, a huge grin on my still surprised face.  “Over in the bay window, please.”

It only took them a matter of minutes ~ minutes that turned into one of those moments where time seems to slow to a crawl, voices become muffled, and you see everything through a haze of starlight and sparkles.  At least that’s how it seemed to me.  How in the world had they managed to buy it without my knowing?  We had all gone to the store together, I had tried out a couple of models.  They never talked longer with the sales guy, no sitting down, filling out papers, money exchanging hands.

They had managed to completely surprise me.  Some kids get a car on their sixteenth birthday.  But I wasn't interested in cars.

So my parents gave me one of my dreams instead:

Image Credit: Pinterest

 She’s no Steinway, but she sounds just as beautiful as she did on my sixteenth birthday.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Today’s Sapphire prompt was to share a favorite birthday memory.  What is yours?