Communicating With Children

Parenting is all about communicating with the child. Positive two-way communication is essential to building child’s self-esteem. Children thrive with word of encouragement and praise. There are simple things you can do to improve how you communicate with the child. If you set up clear and open communication pattern with the child in their early years, you are setting up good practices for future.

Positive communication- Children’s ability to manage stress, feel confident and motivate themselves in the later life has lot to do with their early childhood experiences. A person’s self-concept is their sense of who they are and how they feel about their place in family and community. This begins to develop between ages of two and six years.

Positive relationship between parent and children are an important part of building a child’s positive self-concept. You can help your child develop positive self-concept by using positive communication. For example:

· Pay attention, respect your child’s feeling and watch tone of your voice.
· Respect child’s right to their opinion, no matter how young they are.
· Allow important or difficult issues to be discussed without fear of uproar, criticism or blame.

Listen to your child - If you want your child to be good listener, make sure you are a good role model. Some suggestions:

· Pay attention to what child is saying whenever you can.
· Make sure to allocate some time every day to simply sit and listen to child if you have busy schedule.
· Encourage child’s ideas and opinions.
Build up positive self-esteem- Positive, encouraging words help the children to feel confident and happy. Suggestions include:

· Praise them for tidying up their room.
· Thank them for helping you around house or at market.
· Let them know you that you have faith in their abilities.
· Praise their effort, not just their result.
· Try to avoid constantly correcting child’s mistakes. Your child may feel discouraged and hopeless if their every effort is criticized.
· Do not assume that they know how much you love them – tell them very often.
· Allow them plenty of opportunities to do thing they enjoy and do well. Feeling competent build self-esteem.
· Separate child from their behavior. Disapprove of the activity, not child.

Body language- Actions speak louder than word. Remember that way you say something carries weight. Suggestions include:

· Maintain eye contact with the young children.
· Smile. Child will respond better to smile rather than a frown.
· Avoid talking to them when you are walking away from them.
· Use gentle tone of voice, especially if tempers are starting to fray. Yelling only encourages anger.
· Avoid impatient body languages like eye rolling, foot tapping and sighing. This can discourage child from talking.

Positive phrases- Children thrive with the words of encouragement and praise. You could say things like:

· Very Good job
· You did that well
· I am very proud of you
· That is a beautiful painting
· That was great try
· You are so thoughtful
· Thanks for the help
· You have got great memory
· That is amazing
· Great, good idea!