If it’s not true, kind or necessary, you don’t need to say it. –My Mom

I’m sure mothers the world over have been saying this to their children since time began, I imagine Eve said something similar to Seth when she found him teasing a younger sibling. I have found myself often repeating my own mother and telling my children that the comment they made to me about someone they saw in the grocery store wasn’t necessary; or that the “harmless” word my son used in talking to his sister wasn’t kind, usually because of how he said it, not always what he actually said. I have also recently found myself having to correct my two-year old daughter that it’s not nice to say “nya nya nya” in a sing song, whether or not she’s actually teasing.
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