Correcting People When They Talk – You Knew What I Meant!

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We had someone over the house recently who was correcting one of my children. Correcting them in a way that we just don’t correct people around here. If someone is telling a story and they misspeak, I almost never bring it to their attention. The only time I do is when I need clarification. If a mistake happens to come to the speaker’s attention, I quickly respond with, “No worries, I know what you meant, go on…” For example, multiple ‘funner(s)’ are used by the kids before we respond with a quick, “Oh yeah, you mean ‘more fun—that sounds like you had a real blast, honey.” And we leave it at that.

Since I was a little girl, nothing fires me up more than someone being made to feel bad. My passion around this topic must stem from struggling with reading aloud in class as a child. All the little comments I could hear around the room from my classmates made me feel so small—it was horrible

I understand that one of my jobs as a mother is to be a teacher, I’m just choosing to teach my children that mistakes almost never matter. What matters is that I don’t let my ego get in the way of an exchange with another human being. My being right is never more important than someone else being heard.

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  1. Isn’t that the truth, Mags. I have goosebumps from agreeing with you. Thanks for sharing.

    • Thank you so much for taking the time to comment Julie.
      Sending love to you and yours!

  2. Amen?????? As parents we’re here to build our children up not shut down their creativity..what a wonderful parent you are ♥️

    • Dawn, you’re so kind — but this would have looked very different had I not had help.
      Thank you so much for reading the blog and for all of your support!

Welcome to my blog! Here you can read about what’s on my mind as I try my best to recover from screaming at my kids and nagging the bejesus out my husband.

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I would love for you to join me as I work to undo these old patterns and evolve to create a more serene and accepting existence. (And you should know that I still want to ear flick the little knuckleheads {this includes my husband} when they don’t rinse a dish before putting it in the dishwasher — always a work in progress.)
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