Parents: Effective Communication with Children

Effective Communication with Children

Communication between a child and their parents is very important. On average, children these days spend about 4 hours watching TV each day. If you do the math, that equals 28 hours a week! Not only that, but with today's technology, they probably spend more time playing video games as well. Most of the time when they are doing these things, they aren't with their parents.
It is important for a child and a parent to communicate with each other daily. It is important because of the power it has. It has the power to connect both the parent and child and therefore improve their relationships with one another, allows the parent to pass on morals, hopes, ethics, values and beliefs onto the child and lastly help the child understand certain things that confuses them.

Basically put, in order to see emotional, spiritual, intellectual and moral improvements and growths in your children, you must communicate with them, and talking is one way of communication. However, talking can also have a negative effect on a child's life or the relationship between the parents and child. If the communication is bad between the child and the parent, this usually leads to doubt, hopelessness, misinformation, disrupt mood and emotions or even fear. An example of this is not clarifying to a child why they are punished. To the eyes of the child, they'll take this much more negatively than they would if the parent had given a better explanation.

The goal for parents is to always have your child communicate with you daily. These are some ideas on how you can achieve this goal and in the end have better communication with your child.

Children

A common cause for miscommunication is when a parent talks with their child as if they were adults or someone who completely understands what's happening. However, a child is a child and the way they interpret things is completely different.

Thinking

Adults mostly think in abstract, logical and rational ways. Adults only believe in things if the facts make sense and fit together. Children between the ages of 2 and 7 think differently. Rather than thinking of things in abstract, logical and rational ways, they think of things in a concrete, pre-logical and irrational way. Their thinking abilities changes over time however, and by the time they're 8 years old or older, their thinking skills will improve. At these ages, they'll need things that they can feel, see, or hear in order for them to understand what something is.

Language

Advanced language skills are usually used by adults and older teens. One or both the adults in the conversation will understand the meanings of certain words that are used when communicating. Adults use an indirect or a roundabout way when they are communicating with others. The reason for this is that if the other adult understands, then it'll be faster and easier to communicate. When adults are communicating with others, they'll be able to understand the reasoning and interpret the meanings in conversations.

At the age of two, many children will begin using language. Between the ages of 2 and 7, the child will often interpret language in a very literal way. They will understand the words they hear, however most of the time they will be confused when trying to understand the meanings of abstract words or indirect language.

Children often understand simple or concrete language like: feeling, smell, sound, hear, see, taste, hurt, fun and so forth. At the age of 8 and up, they'll have a easier time in communicating, and aren't as literal;however the idea of understanding or talking about abstract ideas will be more confusing for them. When they are 12 years old, they'll be able to understand abstract language even better.

Time

Children and adults think of time in different ways. Adults tend to think about current actions and behavior and how it'll affect the future. Long-term goals are an example. Children mostly think about the now. They tend to forget about the consequences of their actions and are more worried about short-term goals. When they are in their elementary school years, they'll gain the ability to think about the future and the consequences of certain actions.

Power Imbalance

When children communicate with a parent, they are at a major disadvantage because of three things. The parent is much bigger than the child, they have better understanding of thinking, language and time, and they have more experience than the child. Understanding the characteristics of your children can help you relate to them and understand their viewpoint. For a parent to effectively communicate with their child, they must understand certain rules. The next part of this article will focus on rules to follow in order to effectively communicate with a child.

Rules of Communication between a Child and Parent

The goal for a parent is to further improve the child's emotional, spiritual, intellectual and moral growth. To do this, the parent must establish a safe environment where the child is comfortable talking to you. This means that they won't have the fear of being punished if they do something wrong. Below are 8 rules for parents to follow.

1. Interest

It is a very awarding feeling when you are communicating with someone and they show great interest in what you are saying. If they are paying attention, making eye contact, listening and even adding to the conversation, they are interested. When a parent communicates with a child, it is best for the parent to always have eye contact with them, crouch down to their level and repeat what they said. In order for effective communication, always make sure to show interest to your child when you are communicating with them.

2. Simple Language

As an adult, you will have better understanding of language than your child and you'll know more than they will. Make sure to use language that they'll understand. Rather than using abstract or complex words and reasoning; use concrete, simple and straight forward wording and reasoning.

3. Be Calm and Easy going

You are much bigger than your child physically and mentally. Make sure to use an appropriate voice when you are talking with your child otherwise they'll feel afraid. Your responsibility is to protect them from harm. If you raise your voice or bully them into agreeing with you, they'll begin to develop a fear of speaking with you.

4. Let the Conversation Sway

Young children haven't developed the skills needed for effective communication, so it is inevitable when communicating with a child that the conversation will change topic. Although teaching your child how to communicate correctly and effectively; their logical skills are still developing. When communicating with your child, don't become frustrated or upset when you are discussing something with them just let it be and flow with it.

5. Don't Always Think about Fixing the Problem

There comes a time when a parent is communicating with a child about a problem and the parent knows that they're right or that they know more about the problem than the child. At times, it's good to pass on the knowledge directly to the child; however sometimes it's just better to just listen to your child. In order for them to further develop their communication skills, let them say what they think the problem is. These are some common situations:

• If you know the answer to a problem when talking with your child, ask them a simple question or a series of simple questions that will eventually lead to the right answer. This will cause them to think about the question and eventually they'll find the answer.
  
  
• Certain times, your child will talk about something that is on their mind. Sometimes they do this because they want to understand it more. The best action to take during this situation is to listen.
  
  
• Sometimes when your child speaks with you about something on their mind or a problem, they would like it if you didn't act on the information. Sometimes it's best to give them advice and let them deal with the problem. If they ask for help, help them; however if you feel that they're capable of figuring out the problem themselves, let them do it, however just listen to what they have to say.

6. Talk about Important Topics when Needed to

Don't be afraid of talking to your child about serious topics such as death, God, sex, commitment, morals, ethics and so forth. It is best that they learn these topics from you, otherwise they might learn about them through TV, the play ground or other sources that might imply the wrong meaning. These are some things to consider:

• Make sure to use language that your child understands. It is wrong to assume that they will understand you just because you understand it.
  
  
• Talking with your child about important topics might be very helpful before they are confronted with them in real life. If you talk with them about drugs at a young age and tell them the negative effects on them, this will most likely help them develop defenses against peer pressure when it occurs.
  
  
• If your child brings up a important topic, you can begin to schedule times where you and your child can talk about them. Watching documentaries on drugs, religion, death and so forth.
  
  

7. Stop when your Child Loses Interest

Talking too long in a conversation will eventually lead to people losing interest in the topic. Young children have a difficult time trying to talk about something for more than a few minutes or so. As they age, they'll be better at communication and will most likely be better have keeping interest in a conversation. However, they are still children. A interesting conversation can easily turn into a non interesting lecture.

8. Humor

Sometimes it's best to use humor for a child to understand what you are trying to say. Humor is great for improving relationships and children tend to laugh at almost anything. Using humor in a conversation can also improve the memory of the child on that particular conversation you had with them. Humor is a great way to cope with problems. You can also have a livelier and fun conversation if you use humor. Eventually, your child will also develop a sense of humor similar to your own.

Effective Communication

Conversations between children and their parents can be for different reasons and purposes. In order for a successful talk or conversation, there must be a good purpose for the talk or conversation. Below are purposes on why parents talk with their children.

Exchanging Information

One of the most common purposes of having a conversation or talk is to exchange information. Many times these conversations are straight forward and brief. For example

Mike: "Can you check the weather Dad?"
Jones: "Sure...says here it's going to be raining...want me to drive you?"
Mike: "Yes please."

As you can see, this conversation is very straight forward and simple. At times, these kinds of conversations can be a challenge. If you two are talking about a topic that is very complex, it might be difficult to know the right or correct answer. During these times however, you can tell your child that you don't know or you'll find out about it.

Share Feelings

Children will most often come talk with you in order to share how they feel. When these situations come up, it's your role to help your child understand these feelings and how these feelings came to be. A common mistake many parents make during these conversations is that they attempt to fix the problem and often time deny or ignore how the child feels. This is a natural instinct because all parents don't want to see their child upset.

When a child dislikes a program they are in (for instance boy scouts), they talk to their parent. They say that they hate being part of it and the parent will try to convince them that they shouldn't. The parent is clearly denying or ignoring how the child really feels and attempts to fix the problem by trying to convince the child to think differently rather than help them understand why they feel the way they do.

These are some things you can do better understand your child's emotions:

• Acknowledge and connect with your child's feelings: Don't discount, deny or ignore their feelings. Rather, tell them that you understand how they feel. An example of this is when your child is complaining about school work being to hard. You can tell them that "Yea, school work is tough at times."
  
  
• Give attention to your child: When your child is expressing negative feelings, stop and listen to them. This will indicate that you care for them.

Specific Action

The most common kind of talk between a parent and child is a specific action talk, or a parent telling the child to do something or telling them not to do something. These talks can be frustrating at times, however in order for these conversations to be successful, both the parent and child must be calm. These are some things that can help you:

• Timed Explanations: Explain to your child why or why not they should do the things you want or don't want them to do. Make sure you give the explanations at the right time though. If you constantly explain to them something, this'll distract them and chances are they won't listen and usually the more thoughts they have, they'll be further away from minding.
  
  
• Effective Requests: Use effective requests if minding is important. These are steps to a effective request:

1. Requests should be direct and to the point. They shouldn't leave any questions in the child's mind.
   
   
2. They should also be positively stated. Rather then tell a child to stop running, tell them to walk beside you.
   
   
3. They also have to be specific in order for the child to understand. If they are vague, your child might not know what it really means.
   
   
4. It is also important to give one request at a time. Children have a hard time remembering more than one thing. For instance, when you tell a child to put away their toys, turn off the TV, put away their shoes and wash the dishes; they might have a hard time doing these. However, if you tell a child to clean the table, usually this consists of wiping the table, putting away the dishes, forks, and spoons and so forth.
   
   
5. Finally, in order for a request to be successful, it should be simple. The request should be easy enough for your child to do and understand.

You should also follow through when you are trying to tell your child to do something. You should tell them the consequences of not doing what they should be doing and the rewards of them doing what you want to do. Following through can have a positive impact on the child's life skills. It'll make him think more about their actions and will usually allow them to have more self-control.

What you can do

Now that you know about communicating with a child, you should make efforts in making it happen. When your child wakes up, say good morning and ask them what they dreamed about or how they slept. When a TV show comes on, watch the TV with your child and discuss the plot or the characters. Even read a good book with each other. Do anything that causes you and your child to communicate with one another. In doing so, the bond between you and your child will strengthen and they'll learn more.

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