3 TIPS TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION WITH YOUR CHILD
- Learn to listen well
The single most important thing you can do to improve communication with your child is to learn to listen well. In the busy lives we lead, this is not always easy.
Listening well requires a unique mixture of skills, approaches, understandings and mind-sets. Moreover, it takes time and effort, focus and attention, practice and patience.
Although listening seems like something easy and natural and something that people do automatically, it is much more complex than we think. And we do it far less well than we think.
If communication with your child is not what you would like it to be, consider learning how to improve your listening skills. It may well be the single best investment you will make in improving your relationship with your child.
Listening is the cornerstone of good communication and good communication is the foundation of good relationships.
- Have reasonable expectations
High parental expectations are linked to high achievement and good outcomes for children.
Setting standards of behaviour, outlining aspirations for achievement, being clear about what you consider reasonable are all good parenting practices.
Although high expectations have many positive aspects, unreasonable parental expectations can have unexpected negative consequences.
When children experience the disappointment of parents or the impact of their criticism, it affects them negatively and often causes sadness or frustration.
Have you ever felt disappointed in your child because they have not matched up in some way to an expectation? Perhaps your child didn’t do well in exams, did something you didn’t like, didn’t do the work you wanted them to do?
It is too easy in the often demanding lives we lead to have expectations that children cannot meet.
When an issue arises with your child, ask yourself if your expectations are reasonable. If not, consider whether changing your expectations would improve communication and if yes, is the change worth it?
The question to ask is this: If I have to choose between expectation and communication, which is more important – this kind of expectation or that kind of communication?
- Practise kindness
Parents love their children but we are not always kind to those we love and nor is it always easy to be. Even minor irritations can cause short-temperedness, and grumpiness is the enemy of kindness.
People must feel safe in order to communicate openly and well.
Feeling safe means being able to trust the other person to receive what is said with kindness and compassion.
Kindness helps people to feel respected, to feel understood, to feel less alone, to feel cared for, to feel safe. If there is a lack of kindness a child cannot and will not speak.
Kindness and compassion are therefore important elements of good communication.
Additionally, practising kindness is good for the person who practises it.
It feels good to be kind to others and to experience others’ response to kindness. Through kindness, people become softer, gentler and more tolerant. They are more likely to develop empathy as they look for opportunities to understood different points of view and this, in turn, helps people to broaden their view of the world. Kindness is good for everyone and it is perhaps no surprise that every major belief system in the world encourages expressions of kindness.
Try out these three approaches –
Learn to listen well,
Have reasonable expectations,
Practise kindness
– and watch communication with your children improve.
For further information on listening courses and listening workshops, email info@listeningcourses.com
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