When Words Hurt

- By Gwen Randall-Young

March 29, 2025

key points from this story:

• Words can cause lasting harm.
• Children remember hurtful words.
• Teachers impact self-worth.
• Humiliation affects self-esteem.
• Verbal abuse has consequences.
• Words have eternal impact.

I have seen first-hand, in my practice, the damage that is done by hurtful, cruel words. A parent at wit’s end, a stressed out teacher, a bullying child or a frustrated employer can release a verbal barrage that they feel is justified by the other’s behavior.

Horrible things may be said to children in a parent’s moment of rage, and even if the parent apologizes, the child will still always wonder if the parent really meant what was said. The child will feel less valued, and may still remember those words when he or she is sixty-five, and will wonder how the parent ever could have said that.

A teacher’s comment can have a powerful impact, as children often gauge how smart they are by the teacher’s words. With a negative comment, the child will feel the teacher does not like him or her, and will subsequently devalue him/herself.

If, as is often the case, the remark is made in front of the whole class, the child is humiliated, and other children decide if the teacher can criticize that child, so can they.

Children can be terribly cruel to one another, because they have not been taught to respect the souls of others. If parents and teachers say hurtful things, how can the children learn any different? If the consequence for verbal abuse is less than that for physical abuse, what does that teach the children?

In the workplace, just because one is an employer or supervisor, that does not confer the right to demean or humiliate another human being. Being a supervisor does not mean we are superior.

Being a parent or teacher does not make us superior either. We are all equal. We are all human spirits dressed up as people. The spirit we are berating may be a very old soul who is watching us in our unevolved moment.

I sometimes imagine that when we leave this world, God asks us to step into his office for a moment. He pulls a DVD off the shelf, and proceeds to play back all the scenes where we may have trampled on one of the souls he sent here; one of his children. He asks us to explain ourselves.

Of course, what we did cannot ever be changed for all of eternity, and in that moment we see there is no acceptable reason, no justification for what we did. Perhaps we need to see that right now, in the world today it is as true: there is no acceptable reason, no justification for ever crushing another human spirit.