No one spoke, and Leon having shot his arrow straight home, saw as people so often do in this world that the damage of unkind words could not easily be repaired;...

Quote from: Laddie; A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton-Porter

   My sons can spend hours building things with Legos and my daughter can spend only a minute destroying it all. It takes time to build up a person's self-esteem, careful cultivation with many kind words, but it can take only a few, well chosen, spiteful words to tear it all down. Many times we regret saying things that we have spoken thoughtlessly, or in a fit of anger, but people remember the things that are said about them for a very long time. It is hard to take back a well aimed, barbed arrow that has struck its mark with force. Words spoken cannot be unspoken. The amount of damage that can be done by the tongue is so disproportional to it's size. This is why I think James in the New Testament likened the tongue to a rudder on a ship. Also he compared it to a fire, dangerous and destructive. 

   My wife and I once read a little story to our children called, "Have you filled a bucket today?" It's about how everyone has a bucket. Those buckets carry positive feelings like happiness and love. Then it teaches that we should go around trying to fill everyone's bucket by doing and saying nice things, and when we do, our own bucket gets filled too. But some people have empty buckets and they want everyone else's buckets to be empty just like their's. Bucket dippers try to take those good feelings away. So every once in a while we'll remind our kids to be a bucket filler not a bucket dipper. It's a simple analogy that kids can grasp rather easily and they remember for a long time. Hopefully, if they learn early and often enough, they can prevent the kind of tragedies that words can unleash.