Learn To Communicate With Your Child
Sunday, December 6, 2009 3:26
Good listening and communications skills are vital to successful parenting. Your child’s feelings, views and opinions matter, and you should take the time to sit down and listen openly and discuss them.
It’s easy to react rather than to respond. We react based on our own feelings and experiences. Responding means being receptive to our child’s feelings and emotions and allowing them to express themselves without fear of repercussion from us. If we just react, we send our child the message that their feelings and opinions don’t count. But by responding and asking questions about why the child feels that way, we opes a dialog that allows them to discuss their feelings , and allows you a better understanding of where they’re coming from.
Responding also gives you an opportunity to work out a solution or a plan of action with your child that perhaps they would not have come up with on their own.
It’s crucial in these situations to give your child your full and undivided attention. Put down your newspaper, stop doing dishes, or turn off the television so you can hear the full situation and make eye contact with your child. Keep calm, be inquisitive, and afterwards offer potential solutions to the problem.
Don’t discourage your child from feeling upset, angry, or frustrated. Listen to your child, ask questions to find out why they are feeling that way. Then suggest possible solutions to alleviate their bad feeling.
Children have feelings and experience difficult situations just like adults do. By actively listening as they talk about it, it demonstrates that we do care.
