Roger Marsh: Welcome to Family Talk, a division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh. Words of kindness can be a source of healing, and our guest on today's program understands that principle all too well. The late Florence Littauer, who went to heaven just this past July, grew up in three rooms behind her father's general store during the Depression. She vividly remembers overhearing one customer tell her mother, "It's a shame there's no hope for those children, because they appear so bright."
Proverbs 18:21 declares that, "Life and death is in the tongue," and that is so true. Florence Littauer experienced that firsthand. Out of the 30 books that she wrote, Florence Littauer is perhaps best known for the one entitled Personality Plus: How to Understand Others by Understanding Yourself. It sold over one and a half million copies. It was translated into 30 different languages, and it was one of Dr. Dobson's favorite books.
Today on Family Talk, we're going to hear a talk from Florence Littauer based on another of her books called Silver Boxes: The Gift of Encouragement. Her premise is simple: our words should be like a silver box with a bow on top, a gift to those to whom we are speaking. Here now is Florence Littauer on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
Florence Littauer: I was sitting in a church, and I was just one of the people in the congregation. As I was sitting there, the pastor looked down at me and he said, "I see that Florence Littauer's in our audience this morning." He said, "I think it would be nice if we had her come up front and say a few words." So I got out of my seat and started up the aisle. As I started up the aisle, he looked down and he said, "In fact, why don't we have Florence do the children's sermon this morning>" as I was coming, trying to figure out what I was going to do with the situation, I noticed that little children were coming out of all the aisles. I mean he had little children coming up front. They were used to this. They knew what happened every week.
All of the children came up front, so that by the time I got to the front, there was this whole group of children in front of me. So as I looked at this little group, I thought to myself, "What am I going to say to them? I'll teach them a verse." The verse that came to my mind immediately was a verse that we had used with our children. The verse is Ephesians 4:29, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearer." They all looked wide-eyed and they said, "Aw."
I said, "Do you think you can understand that?" They didn't know if they could understand that or not. I said, "Well, let's start right at the beginning. It says, 'Let no corrupt communication.'" I said, "Now, what is corrupt communication?" One little boy spoke up and he said, "Being nasty to your mother." I said, "That's right. Don't do that. That's bad." They all agreed that was bad to do. We shouldn't try that one. We went on and they pulled out little things, what it meant, all kinds of bad things to say. Then I said, "All right. That's what the verse says we are not to do. Now, let's look and see what should we do. So it says that, 'We should let no corrupt communication proceed out of our mouths but that which is good to the use of edifying.' What does edifying mean?"
Well, they looked kind of wide about that. That's a big word. And then one of the boys said, "Build up." I said, "That's right. Build up. That our words are supposed to build up other people." Then I went onto the next part of it. It says, "Not only is it good to the use of edifying, but it is to minister grace." That's heavy stuff for little children, minister grace. I said, "What does it mean, minister grace?" Somebody had taken a class somewhere that said that grace was God's unmerited favor. So this little child spoke up, "God's unmerited favor." I was amazed at the size of this child that they knew that little phrase. They didn't have any idea what it meant, but they knew the words. Somebody taught it to them.
So I said, "All right. That's good. That's wonderful. That means that God has given us a favor. That's what grace is. So if I'm to give you grace, I'm to do you a favor." I said, "Now, how could I do you a favor?" Well, we went from favor into present into gift, and then we came up with, "yes, every word that comes out of my mouth should be like a present." I should give you a present with my words. I went on with that for a while with them. As I did, one little girl, and I'll never forget this little precious child, she stood up at the end of the row. She turned to all the people.
She said to them, "What she means is ..." Amazing how a little child shall interpret it so the adults can understand. She said, "What she means is that our words should be like a little silver box with a bow on top." I looked at her and I said, "That's right." I'll never forget, even though I have no idea what that little child's name was, but I'll never forget her saying, "What she means is your words should be like a little silver box with a bow on top." Just the last year and a half that I have been working with this little concept off and on, it's made a difference to me. It's made me measure my words in a different way. I began to think back.
I said to myself, "How have you spoken to your children?" As I thought about it, and I realized that it was easy for me to give silver boxes to my daughter, Marita. She and I have always agreed on everything. It was not hard for me to give silver boxes to Lauren. She always did everything right. Now, you might say, "Isn't that wonderful? She's had these two perfect children." But now I have an adopted son. Adopted son, Fred, is nothing like me at all. He and I have never had two thoughts in our entire lifetime that coordinated. I began to think about what had I said to him.
I remembered one day when he came home and he said to me, "Mrs. Johnson said that I have a charming personality." Now, I don't know what you parents would have said, but before I even had a hesitation for a moment, I shot out with the comment, "I'd sure like to see some of that charm around here." Now, when you put that in the context of the silver box, Mrs. Johnson had given Fred a silver box, and what had I done? I, as the mother, had taken away the praise he'd received. I looked back at my childhood and I wondered, "Where did I get the affirmation?"
How did I go from being a child in three rooms behind a store without a ghost of a chance to amount to anything, remembering the lady that looked at my two brothers and may during the Depression, as we stood in the store. As she looked at us, she said to my mother, "It's a shame there's no hope for those children, because they appear so bright." That wasn't a silver box. I remember saying to myself, Florence, you'll show that lady," and I worked to get there. But I thought back. I thought, "How did you do it? Who encouraged you?"
As soon as I began to think about it, as you might begin to think about your childhood, I realized that even though my mother never gave me a lot of affirmation, and when I asked her why she didn't compliment me, she said, "You never know when you're going to have to eat your words." Mother was always afraid she'd have to eat a few words. She felt it was better not to say any than to have to eat them. So I thought about it. I thought, "Well, where did I get my affirmation?" I realized I had a father who was affirming. I had a father who was constantly giving us positive words, who was positive every single day, who was lifting people up, who during the Depression in our little store, people would come to our store just to hear my father's encouraging words.
I remember back to my senior year in college and I came home. He said to me one day right after Christmas, "Florence, come in the back room. I want to show you something." So I went into the back room with him. He never took me there. He never left out of the store. We went back into this little tiny den, which was the only little haven we had, a little den with two pieces of furniture, a piano on one wall and a couch on the other that opened up. When you opened it up, you could sit on the end of the couch and play the piano. That's the size of the room.
So here it was, you had wall-to-wall bed. We went in there that day, and my father reached behind that piano. You know those upright pianos that have all the little holes in them. My father reached behind the piano, brought out this little box, little cigar box, and he opened it up. I looked at it and I said, "What's that?" He said, "It's a box that I had and I hid it away." He said, "Somehow, today I felt like showing you this box." I looked in there because I was a curious person. If I'd known there was a box tucked away, I would have been looking at it. But I didn't know it was there. He showed it to me. It was full of clippings.
I looked in there. They were newspaper clippings. I said, "What are these?" He said, "These are articles that I've written." I said, "You can write?" I said, "Why didn't you tell me you could write?" It was almost like I deserved to know I had a smart father. Why hadn't he told me before? I said, "Why didn't you tell me that?" He said, "Because your mother always said, 'Because you don't have an education, you shouldn't try to write. What if you tried and it wasn't any good? We'd all be humiliated.'" My mother was always afraid we'd be humiliated. So, she never encouraged us just to do anything, to take any risks or any chances.
So my father, he said, "I knew I could write." He said, "I knew inside of me there was an ability to write." So he said, "I would write when your mother was out. I would write, and I would send it into newspapers. I'd watch the newspaper until it came out. And then I'd cut it out and I'd put them all in this box." He said, "Somehow, today I wanted to give you the box." I took that box and I looked through it. I couldn't believe all these things my father had written, important things. As I got to the bottom, there was a letter in there from the United States Senate. I always have been interested in politics. I've always been interested in personalities.
It was from Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. I opened up this letter and it was to my father. I said, "What did Henry Cabot Lodge write you for?" He said, "Well, I wrote him a letter telling him how he should run his campaign better." He said, "Because of that, he wrote me back a letter." It was a personal letter, two pages typed. It said, "Dear Walter Chapman," And then it went down. "This idea was very good. I will implement that in my next campaign. This idea I cannot use for this reason." He enumerated everything, two pages, answering my father's letter, sharing with him what he liked about what he'd said and how he thanked him and appreciated what he'd done for him.
As we left that little room to go back into the store, my father put his hand on my shoulder and he looked at me. He said, "Florence, I think I tried for something too big this time." I said, What's that?" He said, "Well, I wrote into our denominational magazine, and I told them how they ought to change the way they chose the nominating committee for the national convention." He said, "It's been three months now and they haven't published it yet." And then he looked at me again and he said, "Florence, I guess I've tried for something too big this time."
Those were the last words my father ever said to me because the next day, my mother and he took the first day off they'd had in 20 years. I stayed home and took care of the store with my two brothers. My mother and father went into Boston at 4:00 in the afternoon, walking through the subway station and Park Street in Boston. my father dropped to the pavement. At the morning of the funeral, I was sitting in the store, opening up the cards that had come. For those days, many cards had come because, you see, everyone loved my father because he gave them encouraging words.
As I opened up these cards of sympathy from all the people that came into our store, I noticed the magazine, our denominational magazine. I never would have looked at it at such a time, except my father told me. I opened up that magazine and looked through it, and inside, there was my father's article. I'm so grateful today that my father showed me that box. Because, you see, I have those clippings. I have framed on my wall at home, I have the article from that magazine, and a picture of my father. I also have the letter from Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. I went back to Boston and I got a picture of him.
I have Henry Cabot Lodge and his letter and my father and his article. I have those framed on the wall in my study, so that every day as I pass by, I'll remember the value of an encouraging word. Because, you see, my father had a box of broken dreams, things he could have been if only someone had encouraged him.
Roger Marsh: You're listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. If just joined us, we are sharing a timeless message from the late Florence Littauer on the power of encouraging words. Her next story will also remind us of the potential damage of negative or unspoken words. Here once again is Florence Littauer on Family Talk.
Florence Littauer: One time I sat down with my husband's mother. We'd never had anything much to say to each other. She seemed to be a superior being. She seemed to be above everybody else. She was elegant and beautiful, said the right things, did the right things, had the big home, knew how to pour tea out of silver pots, all the things I'd never learned. I looked at her with envy all my life. I was afraid of her because she was so put together. So, I'd never really had a one-to-one conversation with her until this one night, just a number of years ago, when I sat with her in her living room. I didn't know what to say to her, and I asked one of those trite questions. I said, "Mother, what was it like when you were young?" Not knowing what I'd get for an answer.
She said, "Oh." Immediately, she said, "I remember when I was in college, I had this boyfriend. I was so in love with him. We were going to get married." She went on telling me about this. I looked at her wide-eyed. I'd never thought of my mother-in-law having a boyfriend. Somehow it just didn't seem to make sense. As I looked at her, and so I said to her, "Well, tell me about it, Mother." She told me that she and he were going to get married. When they graduated from college, "We went two separate directions for the summer. He was going to call me in the fall, and we were going to get married." I said, "Well, what happened?" She says, "Well, when the fall came, he never called. I never heard from him again."
I said, "Well, what did you do?" She said, "Well, I cried a lot." Tears came down her cheeks. I'd never seen my mother-in-law relax. I'd never seen her real. But as I talked to her, she cried. She said, "He never called me. My mother didn't like him anyway, because he didn't come from a rich enough family." Her mother's theory always was you could marry and fall in love with a rich man as well as a poor man. That was her family motto. She said, "My mother didn't like him anyway." She said, "After a while, my mother introduced me to Fred Littauer." She said, "I married him on the rebound." And then she looked at me and she said, "I never was in love with him." This is Fred's father.
I looked at her and I said, "You weren't?" She said, "No, I did the right things. I played my role." She said, "I had the five children, and I was the good wife." As she said this, she is crying. She said, "But I never was in love with him." What did that make me feel about my mother-in-law, that I'd been judgmental and negative about, that I thought, "This is a cold lady?" I never knew she'd had a problem like that before, and I looked at her with a different feeling. And then she said, "But that's not the end." She said, "A couple of years ago, I went to a party." She's in her 70s then. She said, "We went to this party."
She said, "I looked across the room and there was this man standing there." She said, "I looked at him." She said, "He looked like that young man that I'd been so in love with." She said, "I walked across the room to get a view so I could look at him." She said, "When I got near him, he turned and he looked at me and he said, 'You are Marita.'" She said, "I looked up at him and said, 'You're John.'" She said, "I started to talk with him." She said, "I looked at him and I said, 'Would you answer me one question? Why did you never call?'" She said, "He looked at me and he said, 'I called many times, and each time I got your mother. Each time your mother said, 'She doesn't love you. She doesn't want to hear from you again. Please don't call.' He said, 'The last time I called your mother said, 'She's engaged to marry someone else. Don't ever call again.'"
She looked up at me and she said, in tears, "My mother's words ruined my life." What a different feeling I had about my mother-in-law that day. How bad I felt for the judgment that I had put upon that lady in years past. How aloof I'd felt she was, how artificial, when all the time she was hiding a broken heart. I said to her, "Mother, what would you have been if you could have been anything you wanted to be in your life?" She said, "I would have been an opera singer." I said, "An opera singer? I didn't even know you could sing." She said, "That's because I've never sung since I got out of college."
I said, "Did you sing before?" She said, "I majored in music." I'd never known that because I'd never asked her. She said, "I majored in music." She said, "I wanted to be an opera star." I said, "Why didn't you go and do it?" She said, "Because my mother said, 'There's no money in that. You'll never make it. You don't have enough talent. Come into the family business. That way you'll be secure. That way you'll have money.'" She said, "So I gave up singing." She said, "But inside, I've always wanted to be an opera singer." I never knew that about her. I didn't know she had any hidden desires. And then she got up from the chair, and she went down the hall.
She came back with a box. She pulled out some pictures and in it was this picture. She said, "I want you to see this picture." She said, "This is a stage set." She said, "Because I want you to know that I did once have the lead in an opera." She said, "It was my senior year in college." She said, "Here I am right here in the center." She said, "I'm that one in the wing chair." She said, "These are all the cast around me." She said, "I had the lead in the opera." Now, she gave it to me. She said, "Here, you take this picture. Your daughter's named after me. Give this to Marita. I want her to have it. I want her to know that her grandmother could have been something if she'd ever had the chance,." If she'd ever had an encouraging word, if someone had given her a silver box.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Many of us die with the music still in us." Fred's mother died with the music still in her. My father died with the music still in him. Each one of them had a box of broken dreams, a box of clippings, a box of pictures, memories of what they'd done that no one knew about that had never become fulfilled. Both of them died with the music still in them. During Fred's mother's latter years, when Fred and I went to visit her, her mind had totally left her. She could not communicate. She couldn't say a word. We had no idea whether she could hear what we were saying or not, whether she understood anything.
She was unable to articulate a word. I asked the nurse one day when I was down visiting her in Miami, here in Florida. I said, "Does Mother ever talk?" She said, "No, she never says a word." And then she looked at me. She said, "But it's the strangest thing, that every once in a while, she'll stand up and she'll sing opera." isn't it amazing what's still in our minds? Many times our minds have forgotten what our heart still remembers. Her heart still wanted to be an opera singer. The last night before she died, she stood up at the dinner table. The nurse told us that she stood there and she sang opera. She said, "When she'd finished, I clapped for her. She held her hands and she bowed. And she bowed."
You see, the opera was still in her. She said, "When I went in the next morning, she was asleep with her hands like this and a smile on her face." She had died with the music still in her. In the Song of Solomon it says, "Yes, the winter has passed. The rains are over and done. The flowers appear on the earth. The season of singing has come." Is there someone at home waiting for you to give them a season of singing, who's waiting for a word of encouragement from you? Yes, there may be somebody you know who has a song waiting to be sung, perhaps who has a race waiting to be run, maybe a piece waiting to be played, perhaps a scene waiting to be staged, a tale waiting to be told or a book waiting to be sold.
Roger Marsh: I love how the late Florence Littauer concluded her remarks asking us if there is someone in our lives who could really use some uplifting words of encouragement right now. In fact, our words might be the key to unlocking God's potential in their lives. You've been listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. In the first half of the program, our guest Florence Littauer cited Ephesians 4:29, which reads, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
Sadly, her mother never encouraged her to do anything, to take any risks, for fear of humiliating the family. But thankfully, Florence Littauer's father built her up with words of kindness. Our words should be like the gift of a silver box with a bow on top, and what a powerful word picture that is. Dr. Dobson recommends that you pick up a copy of Florence Littauer's book, Silver Boxes. Using this book, you can learn how to make others feel special, to mend broken dreams, and share the affirming message of the gospel through encouragement.
To learn more about the late Florence Littauer or if you missed any portion of the broadcast or if you'd like information about her book, Silver Boxes, please visit our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org. There, you can get that ordering information. You can also hear the broadcast in its entirety online. That's drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. Remember, you can also write to us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. Doctor would love to get a letter from you. Drop us a line at P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado, the ZIP code, 80949. Again, our ministry mailing address is The Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80949.
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Dr. Dobson: It's a good thing to praise children for the praiseworthy things they do. But is there a limit to the compliments that we offer them?
Roger Marsh: For Family Talk, here's Dr. James Dobson:
Dr. Dobson: Praise is essential to a child's self-esteem. The children who grow up without it, typically wither like un-watered plants. But too many good words for the wrong reasons can be inflationary in nature. This is called flattery. The essence of it is that it is unearned. It's what Grandma says when she comes for a visit, "Look at my beautiful little girl. You're getting prettier every day," or, "My, what a smart boy you are." Flattery happens when you heap compliments on a child for something that he does not achieve.
Praise, on the other hand, is a genuine response to a good thing that your child has done. To be effective, it should be highly specific. "You've been a good boy," is too general. Much better is, "I liked the way you cleaned your room today," or, "I'm proud of the way you studied for that math assignment last night." Praise reinforces the child's constructive behavior. It tells him he's done something positive and valuable, and it makes him want to repeat it. Parents should avoid sliding into empty flattery, but they should always be ready to offer genuine praise to those who deserve their commendation. That includes every child, if we're alert to the opportunities around us.
Roger Marsh: To find out how you can partner with Family Talk, go to drjamesdobson.org.
Dr. Clinton: Hi everyone. Dr. Tim Clinton here. When you think about your family and where they'll be when you're no longer living, are you worried? Are you confident? You hopeful? What kind of a legacy are you leaving for your children and their children right now? Here at Family Talk, we're committed to helping you understand the legacy that you're leaving your family. Join us today at drjamesdobson.org. You're going to find helpful insights, tips, and advice from Dr. Dobson himself. And remember, your legacy matters.