18. Tips to Improve the Way We Talk To Our Children

10/2/2020

Do your children always like to talk to you? Do you know how to respond to your children? Are you wondering what is a proper way to communicate with your children? Studies have shown that communication between adults and children is one of the important steps for children’s language development. Talking and listening to your children will encourage them to respond to you more often. It will improve your bond with them, and it helps them to form their relationships and build up self-esteem. Today we are going to talk about three positive communication tips with children.

First, take turns. Set aside time for talking and listening with each other. Encourage your child to respond to you with words or actions. Prepare conversation with different topics for children and encourage them to express their emotions in words. Ask open-ended questions instead of questions that only have yes or no answer. Reflect back to your child what you hear them saying. “It sounds like the circle time was really fun today! Tell me more about the picture you drew today.” Be open to talk about all kinds of feelings, including anger, joy, frustration, fear, and anxiety. Letting children express the feeling of anger and making them feel angry is completely different. Parents’ assistance with companionship will make them feel safe and protected, which could help them to express their anger in words.

Second, invite your children to guide you through their process of doing things. You will be able to know what the thinking process of your children have. Also, it can give them a sense of control, allowing them to fully express themselves, and help them to build up their critical thinking skills as well as self-confidence. Most of the time, parents or adults are the teachers, but sometimes we can let our children share their teaching skills too. Add these phrases to your conversations with your children. Like, “how did you figure out that? When I was in school we did it like this, how do you do”? They will need those skills in the future and in their lives after all. I suggest parents give children more encouragement, accompany, and spend more time to guide them.

Third, be an active listener. Listening actively is the key to let parents maintain good communication and relationship with your children. That’s because active listening shows your child that you care and interested in them. It can also help you to learn and understand more about what’s going on in your child’s life. Use your body language to respond and show them you’re listening. For example, face your child and making eye contact. If your child likes to talk while doing activities. You can get close to them while they are talking to show you interest in it. Also, repeat or rephrase what they said is a good way to tell them you are a good listener. Be careful do not to jump in, cut off, or end sentences for your children.

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