How to communicate with your children successfully!

In all the ten years that I have been a parent, I have learnt nothing when it comes to communicating with my children. I have read upteen “parenting advice” articles and hope to the heavens that this recommended tactic or that particular approach will solve the problem rather than myself ending up in a spluttering, shouting mess, just because I wanted them to pick up their socks. Yes, unfortunately this is the state of affairs in my house, requests have to be told upteen number of times, the same reminders monotonously droned out daily and  eventual ultimatums belted all for the sake of living the day. Exhausted and at my wits end, I always think at the end of the day, it could have gone better. This particular week was exceptionally gruesome in the parent to child communication channels since it was exam time and none of my children were the least bit concerned about studying for them. Therefore, there I was screaming, screeching and ultimately wailing for some books to be cracked open.

Now you might think that children are children and this is how to communicate with them. It’s a lost cause and eventually it will resolve on its own. But I just realized my oldest child is ten, I’ve only got a good eight more years of intense parenting before she legally enters the world of adulthood. There has to be a better way for us to communicate rather one of where one party ends up in an agitated mess. Therefore here are some helpful suggestions to help assuage the difficult child and to strengthen those lines of communication between parent and child:

1. I am extremely guilty of the following behavior, rather than shouting orders from another room or at the bottom of the stairs, have the child infront of you. Connect before you direct, if it is a younger child come down to their level and explain clearly of what is expected of them. Ask them first to give you their attention by saying “Jane I need you to listen etc” and then when giving then an order, address them in the following way, “Jane I would like you to put your toys away”. This is a more receptive approach rather than screaming orders from another end of a room. It might be the easier way to do, but taking that time, gulping down that frustration and carefully following through on your request would soon get the job done.

2. Children are also human, shouting a barrage of requests will get you nowhere. Stay brief and stay simple. A child will not be welcoming to have a slew of admonitions thrown at him or her. Start with one request at a time, stay brief and stay simple.

3. Get your child to repeat back your request, if it’s too long and they can’t do it, then they most probably won’t do it. Repeat and can’t refuse. Give you child options, for example if they study for their spelling, they can watch T.V for half an hour.

4. Sometimes your child can spiral into a mass of tears and tantrums, at this point it is futile to  bellow out points of good behavior. Settle the Emotional Trauma first. It would be advisable to allow the tantrum to pass and to wait for the tears to dispel and child is once again in a proper frame of mind. Children are highly versatile creatures, they might be screaming one minute and happy the next.

5. Usually when your child starts shouting, your immediate response is to shout back so that you can regain the imbalance in power. But two parties shouting at each other will achieve nothing. As your child screams his or her dissatisfaction, it would help to be sympathetic, be the listener, agree with them and then once they are calm address the issues you wanted to talk about.

These are some helpful suggestions, some could be ones we’ve heard before, but sometimes I find in the heat of the argument I forget all direction and resort to what comes naturally. So therefore it is helpful to revisit these ideas once again and see how they can be incorporated into your parenting. As our children grow our communications with them will also change. Despite the number of suggestions to communicate with your child, one factor is constantly required and that is your everlasting patience. Hold back on your frustration, think twice about the punishments, be patient with your children, they are only young once.

By Mayuri Jayasinghe